Poems by Isaac Rosenberg/On Receiving the First News of the War

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Poems by Isaac Rosenberg
by Isaac Rosenberg
On Receiving the First News of the War
2247841Poems by Isaac Rosenberg — On Receiving the First News of the WarIsaac Rosenberg

ON RECEIVING THE FIRST NEWS OF THE WAR

Snow is a strange white word;
No ice or frost
Has asked of bud or bird
For Winter's cost.

Yet ice and frost and snow
From earth to sky
This Summer land doth know;
No man knows why.

In all men's hearts it is:
Some spirit old
Hath turned with malign kiss
Our lives to mould.

Red fangs have torn His face,
God's blood is shed:
He mourns from His lone place
His children dead.

O ancient crimson curse!
Corrode, consume;
Give back this universe
Its pristine bloom.

Cape Town, 1914.