Poetry Thursday - In the Trenches by Isaac Rosenberg

In the Trenches

I snatched two poppies
From the parapet's edge,
Two bright red poppies
That winked on the ledge.

Behind my ear
I stuck one through,
One blood red poppy
I gave to you.

The sandbags narrowed
And screwed out our jest,
And tore the poppy
You had on your breast…
Dawn – a shell – O! Christ
I am choked ... safe ... dust blind, I
See trench floor poppies
Strewn. Smashed, you lie.

Written in  1916 by poet - and painter - Isaac Rosenberg while serving with the British Expeditionary Force in France. A year and a half later, in April 1918, he was killed during a wiring patrol near Arras. This article suggests a comparison with his later "Break of Day in the Trenches": "'In the Trenches' turned out to be one of those poems a poet in a hurry considers finished, only later to discover, it was actually draft."

Break of Day in the Trenches

The darkness crumbles away.
It is the same old druid Time as ever,
Only a live thing leaps my hand,
A queer sardonic rat,
As I pull the parapet's poppy
To stick behind my ear.
Droll rat, they would shoot you if they knew
Your cosmopolitan sympathies.
Now you have touched this English hand
You will do the same to a German
Soon, no doubt, if it be your pleasure
To cross the sleeping green between.
It seems you inwardly grin as you pass
Strong eyes, fine limbs, haughty athletes,
Less chanced than you for life,
Bonds to the whims of murder,
Sprawled in the bowels of the earth,
The torn fields of France.
What do you see in our eyes
At the shrieking iron and flame
Hurled through still heavens?
What quaver – what heart aghast?
Poppies whose roots are in man's veins
Drop, and are ever dropping;
But mine in my ear is safe –
Just a little white with the dust.

I found the poem(s) via BBC Radio 3's "The Essay" series on the meaning of flowers. Programmes on the rose, lily, magnolia, sunflower and daisy were broadcast in September 2016; catch them here  or via the podcast (each is 15 minutes); the programmes on poppies, lavender, orchids, daffodils - series 2 - was broadcast in November 2017, just scroll down the list on the podcast page to find them.

Gathering ceramic poppies at the end of the installation at the Tower of London, 2014 (via)