Blog #2

  I chose to compare Isaac Rosenberg’s poem “Break of Day in the Trenches” to W.B. Yeats’s “Easter, 1916” because it was also written in 1916. With the obvious difference of the sides of the war they were on, and that Yeats was writing about Ireland’s rebellion against the British and Rosenberg was fighting the Germans. In  Rosenberg’s “Break of Day in the Trenches” was written while he was actually in a trench during war and his poem focuses solely on himself as the main soldier, only mentioning a few others. Rosenberg also writes only about the war and what is happening as he’s writing it, but in Yeat’s poem he speaks of the war but also of a general who married the love of his life and how he despised him. In “Easter, 1916”, Yeat’s repeats the line “A terrible beauty is born” three times. I understand how something can be beautiful yet terrible at the same time during war. War is a terrible thing, thousands of lives are always lost, which is the terrible part of it but when it’s all over your country is a better place, which is the beautiful part of it. The Iraq and Afghanistan war has been a terrible thing, but look at what a has been accomplished, our country helped them no longer be under control by a horrible dictator like Saddam and we prevented further terrorist attacks on our country by finding Osama Bin Laden.
                                       
An Afghan Christmas Day


                                        When I was one-and-twenty(downbeat)

When I was one-and-twenty,

My heart was broken for the first time.

I failed to listen to Housman’s wise words,

“Give crowns and pounds and guineas

But not your heart away”

How dumb of me to think you as

The exception. The memories we had

I will never forget, but you, you’re

What I want to forget.

When I was one-and-twenty (upbeat)

When I was one-and-twenty

I gained some new homes for sure,

Jbar, C-side, Crystal, Redbrick.

They’re so much fun, I never bore.

Absolute, Kettle One, Three Olive,

You all will be the death of me.

When I was one-and-twenty,

I may have spent too much time at the bars.

I hope my grades aren’t too low,

My parents will kill me before I write my memoir.

A new email, they’re here. Oh no.

When I was one-and-twenty (mixture)

When I was one-and-twenty

I was broken hearted,

But I refused to stay down.

As I had also just gained access

And was finally legal.

I didn’t need you anymore,

I had my new bar friends.

So what if they knew not my name,

So what if we only talk intoxicated.

They’ll never hurt me the way you did

When I was one-and-twenty.