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POEMS BY ISAAC ROSENBERG<br />
To Gordon Bottomley [Postmark, February ^(i,<br />
1918).<br />
" I wanted to send some bits I wrote for the<br />
'Unicorn 1 while I was in hospital, and if I find<br />
them 111 enclose them. I tried to work on your<br />
suggestion and divided it into four acts,<br />
but since<br />
I left the hospital all the poetry has gone quite<br />
out of me. I seem even to forget words, and I<br />
believe if I met anybody with ideas I'd be dumb.<br />
No drug could be more stupefying than our work<br />
(to me anyway), and this goes on like that old<br />
torture of water trickling, drop <strong>by</strong> drop unendingly,<br />
on one's helplessness. 11<br />
To Gordon Bottomley {Dated, March 7, 1918).<br />
" I believe our interlude is nearly over, and we<br />
may go up the line any moment now, so I answer<br />
your letter straightaway. If only this war were<br />
over our eyes would not be on death so much : it<br />
seems to underlie even our underthoughts. Yet<br />
when I have been so near to it as anybody could<br />
be, the idea has never crossed my mind, certainly<br />
not so much as when some lying doctor told me I<br />
had consumption. I like to think of myself as a<br />
poet ; so what you say, though I know it to be<br />
extravagant, gives me immense pleasure. 11<br />
48