The poems whose titles are marked * appeared in a privately issued pamphlet, “Night and Day. By Isaac Rosenberg. 1912” (pp. 24); those marked § in “Youth. By Isaac Rosenberg. London, I. Narodiczky, Printer, 48 Mile End Road, E. 1915” (pp. 18); and those marked † in “Moses. A Play. By Isaac Rosenberg. London, Printed By The Paragon Printing Works, 8 Ocean Street, Stepney Green, E. 1916” (pp. ii + 26). These pamphlets were the only work issued by the author, in addition to the following single pieces which appeared in various periodicals: “In the Workshop,” in _A Piece of Mosaic_ (for a Jewish Bazaar). “Our Dead Heroes,” in _South African Women in Council_, December, 1914. “Essay on Art,” Part I. (prose), prefaced by a poem, “Beauty,” in _South African Women in Council_, December, 1914. “Essay on Art,” Part II., _South African Women in Council_, January, 1915. “Marching,” and “Break of Day in the Trenches,” in _Poetry_ (Chicago), December, 1916. The following pieces have appeared posthumously: “In Piccadilly,” “If You are Fire,” “Heart’s First Word, II.,” “Wedded,” “I Did Not Pluck at All,” in _Art and Letters_, Summer, 1919; with an “In Memoriam” notice by Annie Rosenberg. “Killed in Action,” in _Colour_, October, 1919. “Savage Song” (“A Naked African” from “Moses”), “God,” in _Rainbow_ (New York), October, 1920; with an “In Memoriam” notice by Horace Brodzky. “I Mingle with Your Bones”; with an article by Samuel Roth, in _Voices_, Summer, 1921. INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR I Of the many young poets who gave their lives in the war, Isaac Rosenberg was not the least gifted. Adverse circumstances, imperfect education, want of opportunity, impeded and obscured his genius; but whatever criticism be made of his poetry, its faults are plainly those of excess rather than deficiency. His writing was often difficult and obscure, because he instinctively thought in images and did not sufficiently appreciate the limitations of language. Also, a continual fear of being empty or thin led him to an over-intricate complexity. But there was no incoherence in his mind. And the main object of these notes, beyond recording the facts of his life, is to illustrate the growth and workings of his mind from his own letters, which will be the best commentary on his poems. I cannot precisely fix the date, but it must have been some time in 1912, when one morning there came to me a letter in an untidy hand from an address in Whitechapel, enclosing some pages of verse on which criticism was asked, and signed “Isaac Rosenberg.” It was impossible not to be struck by something unusual in the quality of the poems. Thoughts and emotions of no common nature struggled for expression, and at times there gushed forth a pure song which haunted the memory.