Psychological Warfare Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AB CDDCABE FDGHI BJKLMNO PQRHF STDA UFVUAFGDQWXDDYZEA2B2 C2VD2 AE2F2VG2H2I2 WDJ2FAK2L2CM2N2O2 DFM2M2P2M2M2AM2JM2WO F2AQ2BFR2AS2M2R2T2 U2AA V2 AW2YDAEDV2M2 QM2X2AY2IDZ2A3M2Z2N2 BAQ2B Z2AM2T2M2AM2B3C3Z2 GFAM2Z2Z2Z2JIZ2D3AA| This above all remember they will be very brave men | A |
| And you will be facing them You must not despise them | B |
| - | |
| I am as you know like all true professional soldiers | C |
| A profoundly religious man the true soldier has to be | D |
| And I therefore believe the war will be over by Easter Monday | D |
| But I must in fairness state that a number of my brother officers | C |
| No less religious than I believe it will hold out till Whitsun | A |
| Others more on the agnostic side and I do not contemn them | B |
| Fancy the thing will drag on till August Bank Holiday | E |
| - | |
| Be that as it may some time in the very near future | F |
| We are to expect Invasion and invasion not from the sea | D |
| Vast numbers of troops will be dropped probably from above | G |
| Superbly equipped determined and capable and this above all | H |
| Remember they will be very brave men and chosen as such | I |
| - | |
| You must not of course think I am praising them | B |
| But what I have said is basically fundamental | J |
| To all I am about to reveal the more so since | K |
| Those of you that have not seen service overseas | L |
| Which is the case with all of you as it happens this is the first time | M |
| You will have confronted them My remarks are aimed | N |
| At preparing you for that | O |
| - | |
| Everyone by the way may smoke | P |
| And be as relaxed as you can like myself | Q |
| I shall wander among you as I talk and note your reactions | R |
| Do not be nervous at this this is a thing after all | H |
| We are all in together | F |
| - | |
| I want you to note in your notebooks under ten separate headings | S |
| The ten points I have to make remembering always | T |
| That any single one of them may save your life Is everyone ready | D |
| Very well then | A |
| - | |
| The term Psychological Warfare | U |
| Comes from the ancient Greek psycho means character | F |
| And logical of course you all know We did not have it | V |
| In the last conflict the fourteen eighteen affair | U |
| Though I myself was through it from start to finish That is point one | A |
| I was in fact captured or rather I was taken prisoner | F |
| In the Passchendaele show a name you will all have heard of | G |
| And in our captivity we had a close opportunity | D |
| We were all pretty decently treated I myself | Q |
| Was a brigadier at the time that is point two | W |
| An opportunity I fancy I was the only one to appreciate | X |
| Of observing the psychiatry of our enemy | D |
| The word in those days was always psychology | D |
| A less exact description now largely abandoned And though the subject | Y |
| Is a highly complex one I had it was generally conceded | Z |
| A certain insight I do not know how but I have always they say | E |
| Had a certain insight into the way the strangest things ebb up | A2 |
| From what psychoanalysts now refer to as the self conscious | B2 |
| It is possibly for this reason that I have been asked | C2 |
| To give you the gist of the thing the how shall I put it | V |
| The gist | D2 |
| - | |
| I was not of course captured alone | A |
| Note that as point three so that I also observed | E2 |
| Not only the enemy's behaviour but ours And gradually I concluded | F2 |
| That we all of us have whether we like it or lump it | V |
| Our own individual psychiatry given us for better or worse | G2 |
| By God Almighty I say this reverently you often find | H2 |
| These deeper themes of psychiatry crudely but well expressed | I2 |
| In common parlance People say 'We are all as God made us ' | - |
| And so they are So are the enemy And so are some of you | W |
| This I in fact observed point four Not only the enemy | D |
| Had their psychiatry but we in a different sense | J2 |
| Had ours And I firmly believe you cannot point six master | F |
| Their psychiatry before you have got the gist of your own | A |
| Let me explain more fully I do not mean to imply | K2 |
| That any or many of you are actually mentally ill | L2 |
| Though that is what the name would imply But we your officers | C |
| Have to be aware that you and many of your comrades | M2 |
| May have a sudden psychiatry which sometimes without warning | N2 |
| May make you feel and this is point five a little bit odd | O2 |
| - | |
| I do not mean that in the sense of anything nasty | D |
| I am not thinking of those chaps with their eyes always on each other | F |
| Sometimes referred to as homosensualists | M2 |
| And easily detected by the way they lace up their boots | M2 |
| But in the sense you may all feel a little disturbed | P2 |
| Without knowing why a little as if you were feeling an impulse | M2 |
| Without knowing why the term for this is ambivalence | M2 |
| Often referred to for some mysterious reason | A |
| By the professionals as Amby Valence | M2 |
| As though they were referring to some nigger minstrel | J |
| Not of course that I have any colour prejudice | M2 |
| After all there are four excellent West Nigerians among you | W |
| As black as your boot they are not to blame for that | O |
| - | |
| At all events this ambivalence is to be avoided | F2 |
| Note that as point seven I think you all know what I mean | A |
| In the Holy Scriptures the word begins with an O | Q2 |
| Though in modern parlance it usually begins with an M | B |
| You have most of you done it absentmindedly at some time or another | F |
| But repeated say four times a day it may become almost a habit | R2 |
| Especially prone to by those of sedentary occupation | A |
| By pale faced clerks or schoolmasters sitting all day at a desk | S2 |
| Which is not thank God your position you are always | M2 |
| More or less on the go and that is what | R2 |
| Again deep in the self conscious keeps you contented and happy here | T2 |
| - | |
| Even so should you see some fellow comrade | U2 |
| Give him all the help you can In the spiritual sense I mean | A |
| With a sympathetic word or nudge inform him in a manly fashion | A |
| 'Such things are for boys not men lad ' | - |
| Everyone eyes front | V2 |
| - | |
| I pause gentlemen | A |
| I pause I am not easily shocked or taken aback | W2 |
| But even while I have been speaking of this serious subject | Y |
| I observe that one of you has had the effrontery | D |
| Yes you at the end of row three No Don't stand up for God's sake man | A |
| And don't attempt to explain Just tuck it away | E |
| And try to behave like a man Report to me | D |
| At eighteen hundred hours The rest of you all eyes front | V2 |
| I proceed to point six | M2 |
| - | |
| The enemy itself | Q |
| I have reason to know is greatly prone to such actions | M2 |
| It is something we must learn to exploit an explanation I think | X2 |
| Is that they are by and large undeveloped children | A |
| Or adolescents at most It is perhaps to do with physique | Y2 |
| And we cannot and must not ignore their physique as such | I |
| Physique of course being much the same as psychiatry | D |
| They are usually blond and often extremely well made | Z2 |
| With large blue eyes and very white teeth | A3 |
| And as a rule hairless chests and very smooth muscular thighs | M2 |
| And extremely healthy complexions especially when slightly sunburnt | Z2 |
| I am convinced there is something in all this that counts for something | N2 |
| Something probably deep in the self conscious of all of them | B |
| Undeveloped children I have said and like children | A |
| As those of you with families will know | Q2 |
| They are sometimes very aggressive even the gentlest of them | B |
| - | |
| All the same we must not exaggerate in the words of Saint Matthew | Z2 |
| 'Clear your minds of cant ' That is point five note it down | A |
| Do not take any notice of claptrap in the press | M2 |
| Especially the kind that implies that the enemy will come here | T2 |
| Solely with the intention of raping your sisters | M2 |
| I do not know why it is always sisters they harp on | A |
| I fancy it must ebb up from someone's self conscious | M2 |
| It is a patent absurdity for two simple reasons a | B3 |
| They cannot know in advance what your sisters are like | C3 |
| And b some of you have no sisters Let that be the end of that | Z2 |
| - | |
| There are much darker things than that we have to think of | G |
| It is you they consider the enemy you they are after | F |
| And though as Britishers you will not be disposed to shoot down | A |
| A group of helpless men descending from the heavens | M2 |
| Do not expect from them and I am afraid I have to say this gratitude | Z2 |
| They are bound to be over excited | Z2 |
| As I said adolescently aggressive possibly drugged | Z2 |
| And later in a macabre way grotesquely playful | J |
| Try to avoid being playfully kicked in the crutch | I |
| Which quite apart from any temporary discomfort | Z2 |
| May lead to a hernia I do not know why you should laugh | D3 |
| I once had a friend who not due to enemy action | A |
| But to a single loud sneeze entirely his own | A |
Henry Reed
(1)
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