Dawn (Symbol)
In poetry, the arrival of dawn usually symbolizes hope, new beginnings, and renewal. But in this poem, dawn brings the anxiety of warfare. The morning light causes the ridge to emerge "massed and dun," making the soldiers clearly visible to the opposing force (Line 1). The sunlight is described as wild purple and glowering, which gives it an angry and uncanny presence (Line 2). The thirteen lines of this poem almost make it a sonnet, and the focus on morning is suggestive of an aubade. But it is warfare, not romance, that this poem is concerned with.
Smoke (Symbol)
The purple sunlight smolders "through spouts of drifting smoke that shroud / The menacing scarred slope" (Lines 3-4). The smoke comes from the technology of war (guns, shells, grenades, etc.), symbolizing the way that the environment was affected. To shroud something means to envelop or obscure it, but it is also suggestive of the cloth in which a dead person is wrapped for burial. The pollution of smoke covers the land, evoking its death.
Time (Symbol)
Time functions differently during the battle depicted in the poem, ticking "blank and busy" on the wrists of the soldiers (Line 11). This symbolizes the sense of disillusionment beginning to settle over the soldiers. In the following lines, hope flounders in the mud. Though the soldiers are extremely busy in the sense of engaging in battle, their actions become drained of meaning in the ensuing chaos. Time becomes blank as the soldiers are gripped with the futility of the war efforts.
