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.

(Isaac Rosenberg (1890-1918), British poet. Break of Day in the Trenches (l. 23-26). . . Oxford Anthology of English Literature, The, Vols. I-II. Frank Kermode and John Hollander, general eds. (1973) Oxford University Press (Also published as six paperback vols.: Medieval English Literature, J. B. Trapp, ed.; The Literature of Renaissance England, John Hollander and Frank Kermode, eds.; The Restoration and the Eighteenth Century, Martin Price, ed.; Romantic Poetry and Prose, Harold Bloom and Lionel Trilling, eds.; Victorian Prose and Poetry, Lionel Trilling and Harold Bloom, eds.; Modern British Literature, Frank Kermode and John Hollander, eds.).)

Bonds to the whims of murder,
Sprawled in the bowels of the earth,
The torn fields of France.

(Isaac Rosenberg (1890-1918), British poet. Break of Day in the Trenches (l. 16-18). . . Oxford Anthology of English Literature, The, Vols. I-II. Frank Kermode and John Hollander, general eds. (1973) Oxford University Press (Also published as six paperback vols.: Medieval English Literature, J. B. Trapp, ed.; The Literature of Renaissance England, John Hollander and Frank Kermode, eds.; The Restoration and the Eighteenth Century, Martin Price, ed.; Romantic Poetry and Prose, Harold Bloom and Lionel Trilling, eds.; Victorian Prose and Poetry, Lionel Trilling and Harold Bloom, eds.; Modern British Literature, Frank Kermode and John Hollander, eds.).)

The grass and coloured clay
More motion have than they,
Joined to the great sunk silences.

(Isaac Rosenberg (1890-1918), British poet. Dead Man's Dump (l. 66-68). . . Oxford Book of War Poetry, The. Jon Stallworthy, ed. (1984) Oxford University Press.)

When the swift iron burning bee
Drained the wild honey of their youth.

(Isaac Rosenberg (1890-1918), British poet. Dead Man's Dump (l. 30-31). . . Oxford Book of War Poetry, The. Jon Stallworthy, ed. (1984) Oxford University Press.)

Death could drop from the dark
As easily as song?
But song only dropped,

(Isaac Rosenberg (1890-1918), British poet. Returning, We Hear the Larks (l. 10-12). . . Oxford Anthology of English Literature, The, Vols. I-II. Frank Kermode and John Hollander, general eds. (1973) Oxford University Press (Also published as six paperback vols.: Medieval English Literature, J. B. Trapp, ed.; The Literature of Renaissance England, John Hollander and Frank Kermode, eds.; The Restoration and the Eighteenth Century, Martin Price, ed.; Romantic Poetry and Prose, Harold Bloom and Lionel Trilling, eds.; Victorian Prose and Poetry, Lionel Trilling and Harold Bloom, eds.; Modern British Literature, Frank Kermode and John Hollander, eds.).)

Earth has waited for them,
All the time of their growth
Fretting for their decay:
Now she has them at last!

(Isaac Rosenberg (1890-1918), British poet. Dead Man's Dump (l. 14-17). . . Oxford Book of War Poetry, The. Jon Stallworthy, ed. (1984) Oxford University Press.)

For a shirt verminously busy
Yon soldier tore from his throat, with oaths
Godhead might shrink at, but not the lice.

(Isaac Rosenberg (1890-1918), British poet. Louse Hunting (l. 5-7). . . Oxford Book of Twentieth-Century English Verse, The. Philip Larkin, ed. (1973) Oxford University Press.)

Iron are our lives
Molten right through our youth.
A burnt space through ripe fields
A fair mouth's broken tooth.

(Isaac Rosenberg (1890-1918), British poet. August 1914 (l. 9-12). . . Oxford Book of Twentieth-Century English Verse, The. Philip Larkin, ed. (1973) Oxford University Press.)