'Returning, We Hear the Larks': Isaac Rosenberg’s Poem and the Experience of WW1 Soldiers on the Front
Returning, We Hear the Larks
by Isaac Rosenberg
Sombre the night is.
And though we have our lives, we know
What sinister threat lurks there.
Dragging these anguished limbs, we only know
This poison-blasted track opens on our camp---
On a little safe sleep.
But hark! joy---joy---strange joy.
Lo! heights of night ringing with unseen larks.
Music showering on our upturned list'ning faces.
Death could drop from the dark
As easily as song---
But song only dropped,
Like a blind man's dreams on the sand
By dangerous tides,
Like a girl's dark hair for she dreams no ruin lies there,
Or her kisses where a serpent hides.
Written during his 21-month stint in the trenches, from 1915-18, Isaac Rosenberg would scrawl down early drafts of his poetry on scraps of paper, before sending them home to his sister, Annie, where she would type them up and pass along to his friends.
This poem describes the scene of a night patrol returning to the trenches, longing for ‘a little safe sleep’ and what little protection the trenches could afford them. The opening stanza gives insight into the experience of nighttime in the trenches, where the men are constantly aware that ‘sinister threat[s] lurk’ in the darkness. Its the constant paranoia and fear of danger that characterises this poem.
The night and the fear is broken momentarily by the joyful singing of ‘unseen larks’. He describes the joy that this brought the tense soldiers, repeating it three times - emphasising its impact with the phrase ‘strange joy’, highlighting the stark, if only momentary, break in their paranoia. It is strange that even amongst the death, fear, paranoia and destruction, the beautiful singing of a lark can be heard, breaking through the night.
All the language in this stanza builds on this idea, and, as an Anglo-Jewish poet, Rosenberg’s poetry is often steeped in Biblical imagery and language, here is no exception. With ‘But hark,’ ‘Lo!’, Rosenberg draws on Biblical colloquialisms, to highlight the almost miraculous nature of the event. Even the image of the ‘music showering’ on their ‘upturned list’ning faces’ is almost Biblical, as if they are receiving from Heaven, a divine gift of the birdsong.
In terms of the overall experience of the war, this use of Biblical language and imagery help present the idea that small, seemingly innocuous, momentary events can be so prominent in the lives and experiences of the soldiers - even a little birdsong is enough, even for a moment, to lift their spirits.
But, ever-present, is the reality of the war - that ‘Death could drop from the dark’ at any moment, and, while the birdsong may inspire joy, it is not enough to drown out the deafening reality of the frontline experience. Even the joy itself becomes a threat to the soldiers. Rosenberg, who was heavily influenced by the romantics and the classics in his early work, develops this idea by comparing the joy of the larks to this woman that appears in the final lines. She is revealed to be almost akin to a ‘siren’, a female beast that would lure ancient explorers to their death through the power of their song and their beauty. Amidst the dark haired beauty and kisses of this woman, lies danger and destruction - again, Rosenberg calls on his classical and Biblical roots to envisage this danger as a serpent, like the one from the Garden of Eden.
Here, we can see that in the trenches, even the joy brought by harmless birdsong can become a threat. Where a soldier might find himself caught up in feeling, becoming mindful of his surroundings, and finding joy in this small moments of grace, he also opens himself up to distraction and vulnerability that can lead to madness or death.
Even the structure of the poem lends itself to this presentation of a soldier’s experience. The first two stanzas are short, equal, momentary streams of consciousness where the soldiers plod back to their lines. The lack of a rhyme scheme makes this particularly prominent. And with the powerful, impactful, ‘But hark!’ this train of thought, this monotony is broken in the third stanza, and from there, the structure is abandoned, the monotony is fractured and, in the midst of the fear and paranoia, the unchanging rhythms of life are now forever changed by the momentary grace of the birdsong.
Once again, this highlights the power of the small things in the soldier’s mental and psychological states. Their experience of the trenches, of their life, of even, at a stretch, the war as a whole, is forever changed by the introduction of moments that rekindle their hope, recharge their faith and lift their spirits.
Rosenberg was killed in 1918, returning from a night patrol similar to the one this poem describes. His potential impact on English poetry and literature as a whole was cut short, and the possibility of his greatness still discussed today.
