Isaac Rosenberg (November 25, 1890 – April 1, 1918) was an English poet of the First World War. His Poems from the Trenches are recognized as some of the most outstanding written during the First World War.
He published a pamphlet of ten poems, Night and Day, in 1912. He also exhibited paintings at the Whitechapel Gallery in 1914.
Afraid his chronic bronchitis would worsen, Rosenberg hoped to cure himself by emigrating in 1914 to the warmer climate of South Africa, where his sister Mina lived in Cape Town. He wrote the poem “On Receiving News of the War” in Cape Town. While others wrote about war as patriotic sacrifice, Rosenberg was critical of the war from its onset. However, needing employment in order to help support his mother, Rosenberg returned to England in October 1915, where he published a second pamphlet of poems, Youth and then enlisted in the British Army.
He continued to write poetry while serving in the trenches, including Break of Day in the Trenches, Returning we Hear the Larks, and Dead Man’s Dump.
Having just finished night patrol, he was killed at dawn on 1 April 1918; there is a dispute as to whether his death occurred at the hands of a sniper or in close combat.
His self-portraits hang in the National Portrait Gallery and Tate Britain.
CREATION
Isaac Rosenberg
As the pregnant womb of night
Thrills with imprisoned light,
Misty, nebulous-born,
Growing deeper into her morn,
So man, with no sudden stride,
Bloomed into pride.
In the womb of the All-spirit
The universe lay; the will
Blind, an atom, lay still.
The pulse of matter
Obeyed in awe
And strove to flatter
The rhythmic law.
But the will grew; nature feared,
And cast off the child she reared,
Now her rival, instinct-led,
With her own powers impregnated.
Brain and heart, blood-fervid flowers,
Creation is each act of yours.
Your roots are God, the pauseless cause,
But your boughs sway to self windy laws.
Perception is no dreamy birth
And magnifies transfigured earth.
With each new light, our eyes receive
A larger power to perceive.
If we could unveil our eyes,
Become as wise as the All-wise,
No love would be, no mystery:
Love and joy dwell in infinity.
Love begets love; reaching highest
We find a higher still, unseen
From where we stood to reach the first ;
Moses must die to live in Christ,
The seed be buried to live to green.
Perfection must begin from worst.
Christ perceives a larger reachless love,
More full, and grows to reach thereof.
The green plant yearns for its yellow fruit.
Perfection always is a root,
And joy a motion that cloth feed
Itself on light of its own speed,
And round its radiant circle runs,
Creating and devouring suns.
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FAR AWAY
Isaac Rosenberg
By what pale light or moon-pale shore
Drifts my soul in lonely flight?
Regions God had floated o’er
Ere He touched the world with light?
Not in Heaven and not in earth
Is this water, is this moon;
For there is no starry birth,
And no dawning and no noon.
Far away-0 far away,
Mist-born-dewy vapours rise
From the dim gates of the day
Far below in earthly skies.