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Isaac Rosenberg

Louse Hunting

Nudes—stark and glistening,
Yelling in lurid glee. Grinning faces
And raging limbs
Whirl over the floor one fire.
For a shirt verminously busy
Yon soldier tore from his throat, with oaths
Godhead might shrink at, but not the lice.
And soon the shirt was aflare
Over the candle he’d lit while we lay.

Then we all sprang up and stript
To hunt the verminous brood.
Soon like a demons’ pantomime
The place was raging.
See the silhouettes agape,
See the gibbering shadows
Mixed with the battled arms on the wall.
See gargantuan hooked fingers
Pluck in supreme flesh
To smutch supreme littleness.
See the merry limbs in hot Highland fling
Because some wizard vermin
Charmed from the quiet this revel
When our ears were half lulled
By the dark music
Blown from Sleep’s trumpet.

Listen to this poem

Read by Martin Geeson · Source: Librivox.org

About the poet

Isaac RosenbergIsaac Rosenberg
1890-1918

 
By the same poet
On Receiving the First News of the War
Break of Day in the Trenches
August 1914
Dead Man’s Dump
Returning, We Hear the Larks
 
Related books
Isaac Rosenberg at amazon.co.uk