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Isaac Rosenberg

I lived from 1890-1918. I was from England, and am in the English category.

Born in Bristol, England on 25th November 1890 to Russian-Jewish parents, Isaac Rosenberg grew up in the East End of London and became an apprentice engraver until he went to the Slade School to study. He was in South Africa when the First World War broke out recuperating from illness, but despite poor health, in 1915 he enlisted as a private in the Army and served in the ranks on the Western Front from 1916 until he was killed in action on April 1st 1918. He was 27 years old.

Isaac Rosenberg, Charles Sorley and Wilfred Owen, were considered to be the three greatest Great War poets, and Rosenberg's poem, "Break of Day in The Trenches" is generally considered to be the greatest poem of the war.

Biography source - 120 War Poems

Portrait - National Picture Gallery

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1 - 10 of 18  Show all by written, popularity, title, first line
  • Break of Day in the Trenches
    The darkness crumbles away
    It is the same old druid Time as ever,
    26 lines, 1 comment
  • Dead Man's Dump
    The plunging limbers over the shattered track
    Racketed with their rusty freight,
    86 lines, 1 comment
  • Returning, We Hear the Larks
    Sombre the night is.
    And though we have our lives, we know
    16 lines
  • On Receiving News of the War
    Snow is a strange white word.
    No ice or frost
    20 lines
  • God
    In his malodorous brain what slugs and mire,
    Lanthorned in his oblique eyes, guttering burned!
    29 lines
  • Louse Hunting
    Nudes -- stark and glistening,
    Yelling in lurid glee. Grinning faces
    25 lines
  • In the Trenches
    I snatched two poppies
    From the parapet’s ledge,
    16 lines
  • Spring
    I walk and wonder
    To hear the birds sing,
    16 lines
  • The Jew
    Moses, from whose loins I sprung,
    Lit by a lamp in his blood
    8 lines
  • The Immortals
    I killed them, but they would not die.
    Yea! all the day and all the night
    16 lines
1 - 10 of 18  Show all by written, popularity, title, first line

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