Poem by Isaac Rosenberg

In the Underworld

I have lived in the underworld so long:
How can you, a creature of light,
Without terror understand the song
And unmoved hear what moves in night?

I am a spirit that yours has found,
Strange, undelightful, obscure,
Created by some other God, and bound
In terrible darkness, breathing breath impure.

Creature of light and happiness,
Deeper the darkness was when you,
With your bright terror eddying the distress,
Grazed the dark waves and shivering further flew. 

1. The Dead Heroes
2. The Dying Soldier
3. Soldier: Twentieth Century
4. The Song of Tel the Nubian
5. The Nun

Print

1858 Views

Last Poems

To Russian version