The Sentry Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABACDCDEEFGGHIJHJGGK GGKLGGL GGMMKNKNGG| We'd found an old Boche dug out and he knew | A |
| And gave us hell for shell on frantic shell | B |
| Hammered on top but never quite burst through | A |
| Rain guttering down in waterfalls of slime | C |
| Kept slush waist high that rising hour by hour | D |
| Choked up the steps too thick with clay to climb | C |
| What murk of air remained stank old and sour | D |
| With fumes of whizz bangs and the smell of men | E |
| Who'd lived there years and left their curse in the den | E |
| If not their corpses | F |
| There we herded from the blast | G |
| Of whizz bangs but one found our door at last | G |
| Buffeting eyes and breath snuffing the candles | H |
| And thud flump thud down the steep steps came thumping | I |
| And splashing in the flood deluging muck | J |
| The sentry's body then his rifle handles | H |
| Of old Boche bombs and mud in ruck on ruck | J |
| We dredged him up for killed until he whined | G |
| O sir my eyes I'm blind I'm blind I'm blind | G |
| Coaxing I held a flame against his lids | K |
| And said if he could see the least blurred light | G |
| He was not blind in time he'd get all right | G |
| I can't he sobbed Eyeballs huge bulged like squids | K |
| Watch my dreams still but I forgot him there | L |
| In posting next for duty and sending a scout | G |
| To beg a stretcher somewhere and floundering about | G |
| To other posts under the shrieking air | L |
| - | |
| Those other wretches how they bled and spewed | G |
| And one who would have drowned himself for good | G |
| I try not to remember these things now | M |
| Let dread hark back for one word only how | M |
| Half listening to that sentry's moans and jumps | K |
| And the wild chattering of his broken teeth | N |
| Renewed most horribly whenever crumps | K |
| Pummelled the roof and slogged the air beneath | N |
| Through the dense din I say we heard him shout | G |
| I see your lights But ours had long died out | G |
Wilfred Owen
(1)
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