Critical Post: "Easter 1916"

In "Easter 1916"there is an emphasis on death and consequences to people at war.  He talks about how war makes people harder, less caring or forgiving, saying "Too long a sacrifice/ Can make a stone of the heart."  I think that Yeats is glad for the war, because it's helping to ensure freedom for Ireland, but he is simultaneously mourning those lost, as in lines "Yet I number him in the song; He, too, has resigned his part."  This differs from Rosenberg's poems, like "Break of Day in the Trenches" in which he seems to be very resentful towards the war, stating his jealousy of a mouse "Droll rat, they would shoot you if they knew/ Your cosmopolitain sympathies./ Now you have touched this English hand/ You will do the same to a German/ Soon, no doubt, if it be your pleasure." He is claiming that even a rat has more freedom than he does, clearly displeased by the fighting, and seems to see no real good in the war.

Yeats uses more formal, flourishy language, with less easy interpretation needed to get at his meaning.  It seems that Rosenberg writes more informally, in a personal, casual voice, which belies an intimacy and openness that Yeats lacks.  Yeats also uses more metaphoric and cryptic descriptions, whereas Rosenberg is fairly plain in his meaning.

I think both poems have very interesting perspectives on war, and that they are both beautiful in their own right.