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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


KILLED IN ACTION by ISAAC ROSENBERG

Poet Analysis

First Line: YOUR 'YOUTH' HAS FALLEN FROM ITS SHELF
Last Line: IN INADVERTENCE LET YOU DIE.
Subject(s): SOLDIERS' WRITINGS;

Your "Youth" has fallen from its shelf,
And you have fallen, you yourself.
They knocked a soldier on the head,
I mourn the poet who fell dead.
And yet I think it was by chance,
By oversight you died in France.
You were so poor an outward man,
So small against your spirit's span,
That Nature, being tired awhile,
Saw but your outward human pile;
And Nature, who would never let
A sun with light still in it set,
Before you even reached your sky,
In inadvertence let you die.




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