August 1914
What in our lives is burnt
In the fire of this?
The heart’s dear granary?
The much we shall miss?
Three lives hath one life –
Iron, honey, gold.
The gold, the honey gone –
Left is the hard and cold.
Iron are our lives
Molten right through our youth.
A burnt space through ripe fields
A fair mouth’s broken tooth.
– Isaac Rosenberg
Anthony Michael Dorrell (1923–1987) 1973
William Barns Wollen (1857–1936)
What in our lives is burnt
In the fire of this?
Iron, honey, gold.
This is perhaps my very favourite of Rosenberg’s poems. Poignant, painful and haunting.