Battle Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: AB CDCD EFEF DGDG DHDI JKJL M DDNNOO PFIQRQQSSTTUU PPVVDDWWDDPFQQX Y DDQ ZZ A2A2ZZ QQB2HDDD UUC2C2ZZ

A
NoonB
-
It is midday the deep trench glaresC
A buzz and blaze of fliesD
The hot wind puffs the giddy airsC
The great sun rakes the skiesD
-
No sound in all the stagnant trenchE
Where forty standing menF
Endure the sweat and grit and stenchE
Like cattle in a penF
-
Sometimes a sniper's bullet whirsD
Or twangs the whining wireG
Sometimes a soldier sighs and stirsD
As in hell's frying fireG
-
From out a high cool cloud descendsD
An aeroplane's far moanH
The sun strikes down the thin cloud rendsD
The black speck travels onI
-
And sweating dazed isolateJ
In the hot trench beneathK
We bide the next shrewd move of fateJ
Be it of life or deathL
-
-
Night BombardmentM
-
-
Softly in the silence the evening rain descendsD
The soft wind lifts the rain mist flurries it and spendsD
Itself in mournful sighs drifting from field to fieldN
Soaking the draggled sprays which the low hedges wieldN
As they labour in the wet and the load of the windO
The last light is dimming Night comes on behindO
-
I hear no sound but the wind and the rainP
And trample of horses loud and lost againF
Where the wagons in the mist rumble dimly onI
Bringing more shellQ
The last gleam is goneR
It is not day or night only the mists unrollQ
And blind with their sorrow the sight of my soulQ
I hear the wind weeping in the hollow overheadS
She goes searching for the forgotten deadS
Hidden in the hedges or trodden into muckT
Under the trenches or maybe limply stuckT
Somewhere in the branches of a high lonely treeU
He was a sniper once They never found his bodyU
-
I see the mist drifting I hear the wind the rainP
And on my clammy face the oozed breath of the slainP
Seems to be blowing Almost I have heardV
In the shuddering drift the lost dead's last wordV
Go home go home go to my houseD
Knock at the door knock hard arouseD
My wife and the children that you must doW
What d' you say Tell the children tooW
Knock at the door knock hard and arouseD
The living Say the dead won't come back to this houseD
Oh but it's cold I soak in the rainP
Shrapnel found me I shan't go home againF
No not home again The mourning voices trailQ
Away into rain into darkness the paleQ
Soughing of the night drifts on in betweenX
-
The Voices were as if the dead had never beenY
-
O melancholy heavens O melancholy fieldsD
The glad full darkness grows complete and shieldsD
Me from your appealQ
-
With a terrible delightZ
I hear far guns low like oxen at the nightZ
-
Flames disrupt the sky The work is begunA2
'Action ' My guns crash flame rock and stunA2
Again and again Soon the soughing nightZ
Is loud with their clamour and leaps with their lightZ
-
The imperative chorus rises sonorous and fellQ
My heart glows lighted as by fires of hellQ
Sharply I pass the terse orders downB2
The guns stun and rock The hissing rain is blownH
Athwart the hurtling shell that shrilling shrilling goesD
Away into the dark to burst a cloud of roseD
Over their trenchesD
-
A pause I stand and seeU
Lifting into the night like founts incessantlyU
The pistol lights' pale spores upon the glimmering airC2
Under them furrowed trenches empty pallid bareC2
And rain snowing trenchward ghostly and whiteZ
O dead in the hedges sleep ye well to nightZ

Robert Nichols



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