Shows that what
happens affects all of
the soldiers
'merciless iced east winds that knive us'
'Merciless'
lack of feeling the
wind has towards
the men
'iced'
emotionally cold to the suffering
'knive'
as if the wind is
physically
stabbing them
Personnification
'worried by silence, sentries whisper, curious, nervous'
s - sibilance - reminiscent of the sound of
the never-ending wind
phrases become into words -
emphasises how scared and cold
the soldiers are, not knowing
what will happen
'But nothing happens'
repeated once per stanza (x4) at the end
adds emphasis that it
isn't just the war they
are battling against - it
is also the elements.
Doing nothing
prolongs their pain
and makes them
weaker for when they
actually fight against
people
Verse 2
'Watching, we hear'
confusion makes them
use different actions
as one
'mad gusts'
uncontrollable, unpredictable
'Like twitching agonies of men among its brambles'
'twitching'
gruesome - makes
us feel pity
simile
'far off, like a dull runner of some other war'
even though there is only one
main war, the soldiers here are
also battling against the
weather
'What are we doing here?'
anti-climax - they were
supposed to be fighting,
not sitting and being
attacked by the cold
Verse 3
'misery of dawn'
another day of agony - they know
nothing will change and that they will
deal with what they've been dealing with
for the last few days
'melancholy army'
sad army - more rain, wind and storms
metaphorically the only thing the soldiers are fighting
'Attacks once more in ranks on
shivering ranks of grey'
compares the rain as soldiers. The 'ranks
of grey' are the real soldiers'
Verse 4
'wind's nonchalance'
the wind not caring
Verse 5
'Pale flakes with fingering stealth come feeling for our faces'
Snow
personifies the snow as soldiers
'we cringe in holes, back on forgotten
dreams, and star, snow-dazed'
'cringe in holes'
as though the soldiers are
animalistic
'forgotten dreams'
ambiguous
what dreams?
dreams of fighting in the war?
dreams of being back at home
'is it that we are dying?'
confused - what is real and what isn't?
Verse 6
'slowly our ghost drag home'
the soldiers are imagining life back at
home, and how they miss it
'we turn back to our dying'
after imagining life back
at home, they 'return' to
the pain and the
battlefield
Verse 7
'For God's invincible spring
out love is made afraid'
the soldiers feel betrayed
lost their faith in God
'For love of God seems dying'
the soldiers feel broken
and abandoned
Verse 8
'This frost will fasten on this
mud and us'
They will freeze
'The burying
party....in
shaking grasp
'Pause over
half-known faces. All
their eyes are ice'
They recognise the dead
'eyes are ice'
Dead- eyes are frozen
living- no emotion left
The tone of the poem is one of hopelessness & despair.
They feel like the army and God
has betrayed and abandoned them