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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


GIRL TO SOLDIER ON LEAVE by ISAAC ROSENBERG

Poet Analysis

First Line: I LOVE YOU, TITAN LOVER
Last Line: I LET YOU -- I REPINE.
Subject(s): SOLDIERS' WRITINGS; WOMEN & WAR; WORLD WAR I; FIRST WORLD WAR;

I love you, Titan lover,
My own storm-days' Titan.
Greater than the son of Zeus,
I know whom I would choose.

Titan -- my splendid rebel --
The old Prometheus
Wanes like a ghost before your power:
His pangs were joys to yours.

Pallid days, arid and wan,
Tied your soul fast :
Babel-cities' smoky tops
Pressed upon your growth

Weary gyves. What were you
But a word in the brain's ways,
Or the sleep of Circe's swine?
One gyve holds you yet.

It held you hiddenly on the Somme
Tied from my heart at home:
O must it loosen now? I wish
You were bound with the old, old gyves.

Love! You love me -- your eyes
Have looked through death at mine.
You have tempted a grave too much.
I let you -- I repine.



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