August 1914

What in our lives is burnt

In the fire of this?
The hearts dear granary?
The much we shall miss?
Three lives hath one life
Iron, honey, gold.
The gold, the honey gone
Left is the hard and cold.
Iron are our lives
Molten right through our youth.
A burnt space through ripe fields
A fair mouths broken tooth.

This poem reflects on the beginning of the First World War, questioning the consequences of its destruction:
Rosenberg declares that a hard and cold age of fire, iron and death has been ushered in by the war.
August 1914: Though the title refers to the first month of the war, this poem was actually written in 1916, as
Rosenberg trained as a private soldier for the front line.
STRUCTURE: This is, typically for Rosenberg, a poem of precise images that are also symbols that invite
broader interpretation. August 1914 offers these images and symbols in fragmentary style.

NOTES
What in our lives is burnt / In the fire of this?: The opening stanza begins with questions anxious
wonder about the consequences of the war. Rosenberg does not shy away from questioning in his poetry, and
declaring a lack of knowledge, a limited insight. This, of course, is the war: Rosenberg wonders what is
being destroyed by its fire. The word has hellish or sacrificial connotations, but also literally describes the
firing of bullets, mortars and shells.
The hearts dear granary?: the metaphor here, comparing the heart to a granary, seems to emphasise the
emotional cost of war. A granary is where grain is stored for winter; if the heart has a granary, we might
suppose it is where gathered affections are stored for sustenance but have now been consumed, by the fire
of war.
The much we shall miss?: An image of great (much) personal loss. Note the alliteration here and the
stress placed on these two words that signify plenty and its loss.
Three lives hath one life: A cryptic statement that I must admit I find difficult, This line perhaps
imagines one life having three elements those subsequently named. Note another typical Rosenberg
archaism (hath for has).
Iron, honey, gold.: Another example of Rosenberg favouring the common noun over adjectives. Here the
things named have a number of different associations that the reader may apply to them: Irons hard and cold
nature, the sweetness and preserving power of honey, the preciousness of gold. Any number of valid
interpretations can be made as to why these three substances are peculiarly inherent to a human life.
The gold, the honey gone / Left is the hard and cold.: The references to gold and honey here are to me
suggestive of a narrative common in human religion and myth the story of mans degeneration from an
original paradisal state of absolute happiness, a golden age. Hesiod, an ancient Greek writer, described
these Ages of Man as beginning with the Golden Age, moving then through the Silver, Bronze, Heroic then
Iron Age. Each stage (besides the Heroic) traces a gradual fall from a higher state, until in the Iron Age man
has become unjust, dishonest and tyrannical. Gold here might refer to that paradisal state, while honey
seems to have more Biblical associations of plenitude, health and preciousness (Canaan is the land of milk
and honey). August 1914, Rosenberg may be suggesting, is ushering the hard and cold Age of Iron,
defined by callousness and cruelty.
Iron are our lives / Molten right through our youth.: The critic Bernard Bergonzi, writing about
Rosenberg, refers to the multiple associations of his images which can be construed both literally and
figuratively (p.109). Here is an example of this. Figurativelywhich means a transformation of the world
in language Iron are our lives suggests the hard and cold nature of the struggle for life alluded to in
the previous stanza. This metaphorical element of iron is then transformed, as we read on, into molten iron,
or heat. This heated iron suggests the misplaced passion of the young men fighting, but also a fluid spirit of
Iron within the young, in an Age of Iron. We can also read these words literally, however: because molten
iron literally is flying right through the bodies of young men on the battlefield, as burning fragments of
shrapnel pierce their skin.

A burnt space through ripe fields,: at harvest time in France in August 1914 there will have been many
burnt fields, but this line can also, of course, be read figuratively. The destroyed crops allude, of course, to
the loss of young mens lives, razing their ripe potential; yet the ripe fields also seem to recall the hearts
granary of the first stanza, and the emotional devastation that war has brought with it.
A fair mouths broken tooth.: the disturbing image of violence done to beauty closes the poem. Again this
line can be read figuratively (a fine civilization is being thoughtlessly destroyed) or literally (the faces of
handsome young men are being smashed in). Note the fragmentary nature of the sentences in this last stanza,
its difficult syntax: and the striking nature of this fragmentation.