In the poem “Adlestrop“ the speaker thinks back to an afternoon in June when his train had to make a brief unscheduled stop at the deserted station of an English village called Adlestrop.
The speaker describes in detail the beautiful nature that dominated the landscape and how he listened closely to hear more and more birds.
“The Cherry Trees” is a very brief poem, consisting of only 4 lines, in which the speaker is observing a row of cherry trees whose blossoms have fallen off and are now scattered across the road.
The speaker muses that the road looks ready for a wedding, even though there won’t be one.
“In Memoriam (Easter, 1915)” is a short, four-line poem commemorating the men fallen in the First World War.
The speaker paints the picture of a forest filled with flowers which will stay untouched this year because the men who would usually collect them with their beloveds during Easter are away and unlikely to return.
In the poem “Lights Out” the speaker minutely describes the transition from being awake to asleep.
The speaker compares the day (and the state of being awake) to a road that everyone travels along and states that they will all eventually reach a forest in which they will lose their way (and consciousness) and succumb to sleep.
Establishing that he himself has reached this stage, the speaker maintains that there are no feelings, positive or negative, that he will take with him into sleep and that there is nothing, however exciting, beloved or urgent, that could keep him awake now.
In the last two stanzas the speaker emphasizes how sleep is a state that everyone must enter on their own, and that one can never know what will happen. Nevertheless, the speaker cannot resist and finally falls asleep.
