Exposure Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BCCBD EFFGH IJJKD LIMND A OPQRS QTUQS VQQWS BXYZD| I | A |
| - | |
| Our brains ache in the merciless iced east winds that knife us | B |
| Wearied we keep awake because the night is silent | C |
| Low drooping flares confuse our memory of the salient | C |
| Worried by silence sentries whisper curious nervous | B |
| But nothing happens | D |
| - | |
| Watching we hear the mad gusts tugging on the wire | E |
| Like twitching agonies of men among its brambles | F |
| Northward incessantly the flickering gunnery rumbles | F |
| Far off like a dull rumour of some other war | G |
| What are we doing here | H |
| - | |
| The poignant misery of dawn begins to grow | I |
| We only know war lasts rain soaks and clouds sag stormy | J |
| Dawn massing in the east her melancholy army | J |
| Attacks once more in ranks on shivering ranks of gray | K |
| But nothing happens | D |
| - | |
| Sudden successive flights of bullets streak the silence | L |
| Less deadly than the air that shudders black with snow | I |
| With sidelong flowing flakes that flock pause and renew | M |
| We watch them wandering up and down the wind's nonchalance | N |
| But nothing happens | D |
| - | |
| II | A |
| - | |
| Pale flakes with lingering stealth come feeling for our faces | O |
| We cringe in holes back on forgotten dreams and stare snow dazed | P |
| Deep into grassier ditches So we drowse sun dozed | Q |
| Littered with blossoms trickling where the blackbird fusses | R |
| Is it that we are dying | S |
| - | |
| Slowly our ghosts drag home glimpsing the sunk fires glozed | Q |
| With crusted dark red jewels crickets jingle there | T |
| For hours the innocent mice rejoice the house is theirs | U |
| Shutters and doors all closed on us the doors are closed | Q |
| We turn back to our dying | S |
| - | |
| Since we believe not otherwise can kind fires burn | V |
| Now ever suns smile true on child or field or fruit | Q |
| For God's invincible spring our love is made afraid | Q |
| Therefore not loath we lie out here therefore were born | W |
| For love of God seems dying | S |
| - | |
| To night His frost will fasten on this mud and us | B |
| Shrivelling many hands and puckering foreheads crisp | X |
| The burying party picks and shovels in their shaking grasp | Y |
| Pause over half known faces All their eyes are ice | Z |
| But nothing happens | D |
Wilfred Owen
(2)
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