Before
the Battle.Siegfried Sassoon
Music of whispering trees
Hushed by a broad-winged breeze
Where shaken water gleams;
And evening radiance falling
With reedy bird-notes calling.
O bear me safe through dark, you low-voiced streams.
I have no need to pray
That fear may pass away;
I scorn the growl and rumble of the fight
That summons me from cool
Silence of marsh and pool
And yellow lilies is landed in light
O river of stars and shadows, lead me through the night.
Poem: Before the
Battle
Extracted from:
http://www.poemhunter.com/p/m/poem.asp?
poet=6672&poem=32677
Today we are going to analyse Before the Battle, a poem written
by the English writer Siegfried Sassoon in
1916.
The poem is named Before the Battle, since it reflects the
thoughts
of the speaker before a batlle, we must remember that it is written
in 1916,
when Sassoon was fighting in France in First World War
The poem has two
stanzas.
The first stanza has six verses and the second stanza has seven
verses.
The rhyme scheme is almost the same in each stanza, with the
difference
that the second stanza has one more verse than the first one: the
first stanza
has a AABCCB rhyme scheme, and the second
satanza
has a DDEFFEE rhyme scheme. The poem is written in first person, is
the speaker
who tells what is happening to him, and what is he feeling, but we
cannot
find it untill the second stanza (I have no need to pray,
verse 7;
I scorn the growl and rumble of the fighrt, verse 9).
Now we are going
to comment
the poem. In the first stanza the speaker is describing the landscape
where
he is. It is a beautiful place, for the description of the author we
may
think that he is in the countryside, next to a river or a small lake,
beacause
of the tress and the water named in the poem (Music of whispering
trees,
verse 1; where shaken water gleams, verse 3). The
place that Sassoon is describing is peaceful place at the
beginning
of the poem, with the whispering of the trees, the water shinning and
the
birds singing (With ready bird-notes calling, verse 5), but in
the
end of the first stanza we can see that this place is even more
peaceful,
because it is getting dark and he can be invisible. Because of this,
he feels
safe (O bear me safe through dark, verse 6)
In the second
stanza,
the author is expressing his feelings. The author here tells the
reader
that he is not afraid and he has no need to pray for his safety (I
have
no need to pray/Thatfear may pass away, verses 6 and 7), because
he feels
safe now and he does not like the fighting during the day. At night he
has
not to fight, so he wants to go to the dark, at night (O rivers of
stars
and shadows, lead me through the night, verse
13).
This poem is a
reflexion
of Sassoon about the war. His position was
difficult,
because he was against war, but he had to fight bravely in the war
against
germans in France. In
spite
of being a coward deserting, he made brave actions, such as the
capture
of a german trench in the Hinderburg Line, because he knew the
horrors of
the war, but maybe he thought that it was necessary to protect his
country.
Sassoon wrote this poem to show the readers how the light can made
him feel
insecure, since it is during the day when both armies are fighting,
when
the sun can be seen reflected in the water. And the battlefield could
be
in anywhere, even in a beatiful place,which is ironical, because it
is hard
to think in a beautiful and terrifying place at the same time, just as
Sassoon
is describing. The place that he is describing is beautiful, but not
to
him, because is there where Sassoon fights every day, until the
conquest
of the land. He prefers not to see that place during the day, because
he
will see the beauty of that place, and the horrors, too. He prefers
the night,
which is dark, and at night, he cannot see the horrors of the day and
where
he has not to pray for his life.
The darkness where
the
author wants to be could be death. If he is dead, he would not see
the horrors
that he has te see every day in the battlefield, which used to be
beautiful
in the past, but now has become in a trench, plenty of bombs and dead
people.
If the author follows the river of stars and shadows, he could be in
peace.
For him, death and night is the same, no fighting.
| First
paper |
Next |
Bibliography.
ü
Poemhunter.com http://www.poemhunter.com/p/m/poem.asp?poet=6672&poem=32677
6.05.2006
ü
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siegfried_Sassoon
6.05.2006
Wikipedia
®