On Receiving News of the War is a poem by Isaac Rosenberg

Isaac Rosenberg

Isaac Rosenberg was an English poet of the First World War who was considered to be one of the greatest of all English war poets...

 which he wrote after hearing of the outbreak of World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 while in Cape Town

Cape Town

Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...

, South Africa

South Africa

The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

. Unusually it takes an anti-war stance in contrast to much of the initial patriotic poetry produced during the early months of the war.

The poem

Snow is a strange white word.

No ice or frost

Has asked of bud or bird

For Winter's cost.

Yet ice and frost and snow

From earth to sky

This Summer land doth know.

No man knows why.

In all men's hearts it is.

Some spirit old

Hath turned with malign kiss

Our lives to mould.

Red fangs have torn His face.

God's blood is shed.

He mourns from His lone place

His children dead.

O! ancient crimson curse!

Corrode, consume.

Give back this universe

Its pristine bloom.