Closely compare the connection between technique and feeling in Rosenberg’s “Dead Man’s Dump” and Tennyson’s “The Charge of the Light Brigade.” Using a few quoted details, explain exactly what techniques (and resulting feelings) make Rosenberg’s poem modern. Poems are attached. 300 WordsHome > Poems & Poets > Browse Poems > Dead Man’s Dump by Isaac Rosenberg Dead Man’s Dump BY ISAAC ROSENBERG The plunging limbers over the shattered track Racketed with their rusty freight, Stuck out like many crowns of thorns, And the rusty stakes like sceptres old To stay the flood of brutish men Upon our brothers dear. The wheels lurched over sprawled dead But pained them not, though their bones crunched, Their shut mouths made no moan. They lie there huddled, friend and foeman, Man born of man, and born of woman, And shells go crying over them From night till night and now. Earth has waited for them, All the time of their growth Fretting for their decay: Now she has them at last! In the strength of their strength Suspended—stopped and held. What fierce imaginings their dark souls lit? Earth! have they gone into you! Somewhere they must have gone, And flung on your hard back Is their soul’s sack Emptied of Godancestralled essences. Who hurled them out? Who hurled? None saw their spirits’ shadow shake the grass, Or stood aside for the half used life to pass Out of those doomed nostrils and the doomed mouth, When the swift iron burning bee Drained the wild honey of their youth. What of us who, flung on the shrieking pyre, Walk, our usual thoughts untouched, Our lucky limbs as on ichor fed, Immortal seeming ever? Perhaps when the flames beat loud on us, A fear may choke in our veins And the startled blood may stop. The air is loud with death, The dark air spurts with fire, The explosions ceaseless are. Timelessly now, some minutes past, Those dead strode time with vigorous life, Till the shrapnel called ‘An end!’ But not to all. In bleeding pangs Some borne on stretchers dreamed of home, Dear things, warblotted from their hearts. Maniac Earth! howling and flying, your bowel Seared by the jagged fire, the iron love, The impetuous storm of savage love. Dark Earth! dark Heavens! swinging in chemic smoke, What dead are born when you kiss each soundless soul With lightning and thunder from your mined heart, Which man’s self dug, and his blind fingers loosed? A man’s brains splattered on A stretcherbearer’s face; His shook shoulders slipped their load, But when they bent to look again The drowning soul was sunk too deep For human tenderness. They left this dead with the older dead, Stretched at the cross roads. Burnt black by strange decay Their sinister faces lie, The lid over each eye, The grass and coloured clay More motion have than they, Joined to the great sunk silences. Here is one not long dead; His dark hearing caught our far wheels, And the choked soul stretched weak hands To reach the living word the far wheels said, The blooddazed intelligence beating for light, Crying through the suspense of the far torturing wheels Swift for the end to break Or the wheels to break, Cried as the tide of the world broke over his sight. Will they come? Will they ever come? Even as the mixed hoofs of the mules, The quiveringbellied mules, And the rushing wheels all mixed With his tortured upturned sight. So we crashed round the bend, We heard his weak scream, We heard his very last sound, And our wheels grazed his dead face. RELATED CONTENT Discover this poem's context and related poetry, articles, and media. POET Isaac Rosenberg SUBJECTS Living, Death, Social Commentaries, War & Conflict, Mythology & Folklore, Horror POET'S REGION England SCHOOL / PERIOD Georgian Report a problem with this poem. POETRY The oldest monthly devoted to verse in the English language. July/August 2016 Table of Contents Buy This Issue Subscribe to Poetry Magazine Browse All Issues Back to 1912 Home > Poems & Poets > Browse Poems > The Charge of the Light Brigade by Alfred, Lord Tennyson The Charge of the Light Brigade BY ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON I Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward, All in the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. “Forward, the Light Brigade! Charge for the guns!” he said. Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. II “Forward, the Light Brigade!” Was there a man dismayed? Not though the soldier knew Someone had blundered. Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die. Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. III Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon in front of them Volleyed and thundered; Stormed at with shot and shell, Boldly they rode and well, Into the jaws of Death, Into the mouth of hell Rode the six hundred. IV Flashed all their sabres bare, Flashed as they turned in air Sabring the gunners there, Charging an army,