"Break of Day in the Trenches"
"God"
"Dead Man's Dump"
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"Break of Day in the Trenches"
except it has a bitter twist. Instead of acting as a connection of love, the rat acts
as a connection of enemies.
It is ironic that the rat, a wild animal, has reversed positions with the soldiers.
It passes them at looks at them as though they were the savage creatures.
"It seems you inwardly grin as you pass
Now it is the men's turn to have the shorter life expectancy.
Strong eyes, fine limbs, haughty athletes,
Less chanced than you for life ...
... What do you seen in our eyes
At the shrieking iron and flame
Hurled through still heavens?"
The poppies seem to represent death in the poem. The red color comes from
the blood of the dead. It is placed in "roughly the place where the bullet would
enter if he should stick his head above the parapet" (FP). It is now a "little bit
white with dust" due to the "literal dust of the hot summer of 1916" (FP).
However, because it has been pulled, it will certainly return to dust. "The most
ironic word in the poem is the safe of the penultimate line" (FP).
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"God"
vengeance from an uncaring God who uses whatever happiness or pride is left in
life to make the fall all the more devastating. At dawn the killing begins again
without the aid of a compassionate God.
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"Dead Man's Dump"
bodies. Around him are the sounds of the war and the lost souls of his peers, but
the soldiers keep going. They hear the screams, they see the death, and
while part of them should feel terrible, they have to continue and put it behind
them.
"The superb coming together of Rosenberg's "Dead Man Dump" is an
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expression of the difference and the disjunction between art and life.
The disjunction is disturbing. It sometimes makes us ashamed, as
though we had betrayed the theme (and those caught up in it) for the
sake of poetry." (SJ)