Counter-attack Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEFGHIJKLM NOPQIRSCTUV FWXYZA2B2U C2D2E2F2G2H2I2| We'd gained our first objective hours before | A |
| While dawn broke like a face with blinking eyes | B |
| Pallid unshaved and thirsty blind with smoke | C |
| Things seemed all right at first We held their line | D |
| With bombers posted Lewis guns well placed | E |
| And clink of shovels deepening the shallow trench | F |
| The place was rotten with dead green clumsy legs | G |
| High booted sprawled and grovelled along the saps | H |
| And trunks face downward in the sucking mud | I |
| Wallowed like trodden sand bags loosely filled | J |
| And naked sodden buttocks mats of hair | K |
| Bulged clotted heads slept in the plastering slime | L |
| And then the rain began the jolly old rain | M |
| - | |
| A yawning soldier knelt against the bank | N |
| Staring across the morning blear with fog | O |
| He wondered when the Allemands would get busy | P |
| And then of course they started with five nines | Q |
| Traversing sure as fate and never a dud | I |
| Mute in the clamour of shells he watched them burst | R |
| Spouting dark earth and wire with gusts from hell | S |
| While posturing giants dissolved in drifts of smoke | C |
| He crouched and flinched dizzy with galloping fear | T |
| Sick for escape loathing the strangled horror | U |
| And butchered frantic gestures of the dead | V |
| - | |
| An officer came blundering down the trench | F |
| Stand to and man the fire step On he went | W |
| Gasping and bawling Fire step counter attack | X |
| Then the haze lifted Bombing on the right | Y |
| Down the old sap machine guns on the left | Z |
| And stumbling figures looming out in front | A2 |
| O Christ they're coming at us Bullets spat | B2 |
| And he remembered his rifle rapid fire | U |
| - | |
| And started blazing wildly then a bang | C2 |
| Crumpled and spun him sideways knocked him out | D2 |
| To grunt and wriggle none heeded him he choked | E2 |
| And fought the flapping veils of smothering gloom | F2 |
| Lost in a blurred confusion of yells and groans | G2 |
| Down and down and down he sank and drowned | H2 |
| Bleeding to death The counter attack had failed | I2 |
Siegfried Sassoon
(2)
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