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Poetry from WWI
The speaker of the poem is a man who has been at war describing his experiences at war, written in first persona. This person is at war and describing his experiences to the people at home, who do not know what it really means to be at war.
The situation in the poem in the first stanza is a man at war, a man who is jovial, but not at this moment when he is in the battle field, holding to his riffle despite having injuries such as wounds implied by bandages he still has to hold on. In the following stanza he acknowledges the essence of the oath that soldiers take before departing for war. As they were taking the oaths they were probably not sure of what real war was like, but now does and the oath does give them courage to ignore their feelings. The oath states that what they are doing is of great interest to their country and very right hence they are able to carry on their duty without hesitance or fear. Here the speaker is describing events taking place at the war, when he says that he did hear music while on duty from its silence. At war, the sound one expects is gunfire and explosions, hence, this describes his feelings where this was music to his ears, since war had made him numb to feelings. Silence to be taken to mean the loneliness that a man at war and facing death feels, and has to concentrate on fighting, forgetting the sound of the bombing and gunfire. To illustrate the lack of feelings at the war when he says he found peace in the explosion that spouted reddest spate, which is probably blood. This shows their devotion to their country or patriotism to a point of offering their life for its sake.
In the next stanza, the speaker talks about feelings of togetherness with the soldiers despite having differences with their opponents. He feels that they share sorrow of darkness in hell together, considering the war field to be hell. He further describes the battlefield as a trembling of flare, probably because the soldiers were scared, and needed help when h talks of flare that is used to signal for help although there seemed to be none coming forth. He further centers on feelings by mentioning heaven to illustrate peace that is only gotten through death. The last stanza talks about feelings of war to the audience, telling them what is real meaning of being at war. He refers to them as lacking the real meaning of war when he says that the people shall not regard their work, and says that they deserve to be cried for and they did not owe the people anything, but instead the people owed them. The poem has centered on describing the events at a battlefield and the feelings of those fighting the war. The poem is specific to war.
The poem’s tone is a combination of irony and seriousness. The soldier writing the poem is very serious about the feelings of the war and his experiences.
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