Speaker or Narrator, and Point of View
An unidentified speaker witnesses a battle taking place, and describes soldiers using the third-person. At the end, the plea to Jesus to stop the violence indicates that the speaker is either participating in the battle, or is speaking on behalf of the soldiers.
Form and Meter
The thirteen lines of the poem are written in iambic pentameter (with some exceptions), and has a rhyme scheme of AABACBDCDEFFE
Metaphors and Similes
Metaphors
-"And hope, with furtive eyes and grappling fists, / Flounders in mud" (Lines 12-13): Hope metaphorically flounders in mud.
Alliteration and Assonance
Alliteration
-"Smouldering through spouts of drifting smoke that shroud" (Line 3): The /s/ repeats.
-"The menacing scarred slope" (Line 4): The /s/ repeats.
-"time ticks blank and busy" (Line 11): The /b/ repeats.
Irony
N/A
Genre
War poetry
Setting
This poem is set on a battlefield as soldiers prepare for and engage in a battle that takes place on a morning.
Tone
Eerie, Desperate, Violent
Protagonist and Antagonist
The soldiers are the protagonists of this poem. The antagonist is the war itself.
Major Conflict
The major conflict of this poem is the violence of warfare, which affects both people and the landscape.
Climax
The climax of the poem is at the end when the speaker pleads to Jesus to make the war stop.
Foreshadowing
The "menacing" slope foreshadows the danger of the scene ahead in which the opposition opens fire (Line 4).
Understatement
N/A
Allusions
Sassoon alludes to the First World War in this poem, depicting what it was like on the battlefield.
Metonymy and Synecdoche
"Men" is a metonym for the soldiers.
Personification
-The sun is personified as "glow'ring" (Line 2).
-The slope is personified as "menacing" (Line 4).
-The tanks are personified as creeping (Line 5).
-The barrage "roars" like an animal (Line 6).
-Hope is personified as it flounders in the mud with its "furtive eyes and grappling fists" (Lines 12-13).
Hyperbole
N/A
Onomatopoeia
N/A
