The Clouds Above
The poem opens with the speaker fulfilling the title: he foresees his death. That death will come in a plane, of course, since he is an airman, but not merely an accident. He predicts he will be shot down in a dogfight during World War I. The phrase “the clouds above” which ends line 2 is the symbolic description of that war taking place below as well as the one taking place in the sky.
Kiltartan’s Poor
He is an Irish airman, but more specifically he is from the Kiltartan region of Ireland. This serves to individualize him. The succeeding line, however, fulfills the device of paradox which runs throughout the verse. After first specifying him as from Kiltartan, he goes on to describe the people of that region as poor. However, Ireland was a notoriously poor country at this time—it why so many emigrated to America as well as why so many enlisted to fight a war against an enemy which at no time ever really posed a direct threat to their homeland. Kiltartan’s poor thus becomes a subtle symbol which helps to explain why so many Irish natives enlisted to fight a war which threatened England far more than it threatened their own island.
Public Men
In fact, much of this poem is devoted to dislodging from the permanence of World War I discourse the idea that men around the world went to war at behest of buying the propaganda. “Public men” is the symbolic incarnation of politicians who propagate false patriotic devotion to gin up the willingness to go die in a foreign land ostensibly for proposes of protecting their country. This really needs no more explanation.
Cheering Crowds
In addition to “public men” the speaker rejects the notion that it was the lure of crowds cheering his triumphant return home which urged him to enlist. While the public men are symbols of false patriotic appeal, “cheering crowds” indicates true patriotic respect, but its placement right after the reference to propaganda subverts even this display of heartfelt nationalistic pride as being the result of misguidance at the hands of that propaganda.
The Lonely Impulse of Delight
The speaker—having rejected patriotic duty in its entirety as his urge to go to war—leaves the reader with only a very ambiguous explanation for his going to fight in a war he has no business fighting in. And that ambiguity is further shaded by it being forward in symbolic language: “A lonely impulse of delight.” Contrary to what some have interpreted, it is not sufficiently explained. At best, it describes a symbolic incarnation of the subconscious drive toward self-destruction.
