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1 The darkness crumbles away.
It is the same old druid Time as ever,
Only a live thing leaps my hand,
A queer sardonic rat,
5 As I pull the parapet’s poppy
To stick behind my ear.
Droll rat, they would shoot you if they knew
Your cosmopolitan sympathies.
Now you have touched this English hand
10 You will do the same to a German
Soon, no doubt, if it be your pleasure
To cross the sleeping green between.
It seems you inwardly grin as you pass
Strong eyes, fine limbs, haughty athletes,
15 Less chanced than you for life,
Bonds to the whims of murder,
Sprawled in the bowels of the earth,
The torn fields of France.
What do you see in our eyes
20 At the shrieking iron and flame
Hurled through still heavens?
What quaver—what heart aghast?
Poppies whose roots are in man’s veins
Drop, and are ever dropping;
25 But mine in my ear is safe—
Just a little white with the dust
first-person singular
→ own experiences
second-person plural
→ for all soldiers
1 The darkness crumbles away.
It is the same old druid Time as ever,
Only a live thing leaps my hand,
A queer sardonic rat,
5 As I pull the parapet’s poppy
To stick behind my ear.
Droll rat, they would shoot you if they knew
Your cosmopolitan sympathies.
Now you have touched this English hand
10 You will do the same to a German
Soon, no doubt, if it be your pleasure
To cross the sleeping green between.
It seems you inwardly grin as you pass
Strong eyes, fine limbs, haughty athletes,
15 Less chanced than you for life,
Bonds to the whims of murder,
Sprawled in the bowels of the earth,
The torn fields of France.
What do you see in our eyes
20 At the shrieking iron and flame
Hurled through still heavens?
What quaver—what heart aghast?
Poppies whose roots are in man’s veins
Drop, and are ever dropping;
25 But mine in my ear is safe—
Just a little white with the dust
4 queer= strange, odd sardonic= cynical
7 droll= Curious or unusual in a way that provokes dry amusement/koddig
8 cosmopolitan= Familiar with and at ease in many different countries and cultures
13 inwardly= Within the mind
14 haughty= Arrogantly superior and disdainful
16 whims= A sudden desire or change of mind, especially one that is unusual or unexplained
17 to sprawl= Spread out over a large area in an untidy or irregular way
bowels= The deepest inner parts or areas of (something)
20 shrieking= High-pitched piercing cries or sounds
21 to hurl= Throw or impel (someone or something) with great force
22 quaver= A shake or tremble in a person’s voice
aghast= Filled with horror or shock
metaphor
alliteration
assonance
1 The darkness crumbles away.
It is the same old druid Time as ever,
Only a live thing leaps my hand,
A queer sardonic rat,
5 As I pull the parapet’s poppy
To stick behind my ear.
Droll rat, they would shoot you if they knew
Your cosmopolitan sympathies.
Now you have touched this English hand
10 You will do the same to a German
Soon, no doubt, if it be your pleasure
To cross the sleeping green between.
It seems you inwardly grin as you pass
Strong eyes, fine limbs, haughty athletes,
15 Less chanced than you for life,
Bonds to the whims of murder,
Sprawled in the bowels of the earth,
The torn fields of France.
What do you see in our eyes
20 At the shrieking iron and flame
Hurled through still heavens?
What quaver—what heart aghast?
Poppies whose roots are in man’s veins
Drop, and are ever dropping;
25 But mine in my ear is safe—
Just a little white with the dust
enumeration
asyndeton
metaphor
onomatopoeia
repetition
→‘if it be your pleasure
To cross the sleeping green between’
→life and death in times of war