Death could drop from the dark

Spent the day in London - this snap, taken on the way home, is of a giant poppy which is adorning the wonderful framework inside Kings Cross railway station ...

... so; here's the 1917 Isaac Rosenberg poem, written while he served in the trenches:


Returning we hear the larks

Sombre the night is.
And though we have our lives, we know
What sinister threat lurks there.

Dragging these anguished limbs, we only know
This poison-blasted track opens on our camp—
On a little safe sleep.

But hark! joy—joy—strange joy.
Lo! heights of night ringing with unseen larks.
Music showering our upturned list’ning faces.

Death could drop from the dark
As easily as song—
But song only dropped,
Like a blind man’s dream on the sand
By dangerous tides,
Like a girl’s dark hair for she dreams no ruin lies there,
Or her kisses where a serpent hides.

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Isaac Rosenberg (1890 – 1918)

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