Analysis of A Working Party
Siegfried Loraine Sassoon 1886 ( Matfield, Kent) – 1967 (Heytesbury, Wiltshire)
Three hours ago he blundered up the trench,
Sliding and poising, groping with his boots;
Sometimes he tripped and lurched against the walls
With hands that pawed the sodden bags of chalk.
He couldn't see the man who walked in front;
Only he heard the drum and rattle of feet
Stepping along the trench-boards, - often splashing
Wretchedly where the sludge was ankle-deep.
Voices would grunt, "Keep to your right, - make way!"
When squeezing past the men from the front-line:
White faces peered, puffing a point of red;
Candles and braziers glinted through the chinks
And curtain-flaps of dug-outs; then the gloom
Swallowed his sense of sight; he stooped and swore
Because a sagging wire had caught his neck.
A flare went up; the shining whiteness spread
And flickered upward, showing nimble rats,
And mounds of glimmering sand-bags, bleached with rain;
Then the slow, silver moment died in dark.
The wind came posting by with chilly gusts
And buffeting at corners, piping thin
And dreary through the crannies; rifle-shots
Would split and crack and sing along the night,
And shells came calmly through the drizzling air
To burst with hollow bang below the hill.
Three hours ago he stumbled up the trench;
Now he will never walk that road again:
He must be carried back, a jolting lump
Beyond all need of tenderness and care;
A nine-stone corpse with nothing more to do.
He was a young man with a meagre wife
And two pale children in a Midland town;
He showed the photograph to all his mates;
And they considered him a decent chap
Who did his work and hadn't much to say,
And always laughed at other people's jokes
Because he hadn't any of his own.
That night, when he was busy at his job
Of piling bags along the parapet,
He thought how slow time went, stamping his feet,
And blowing on his fingers, pinched with cold.
He thought of getting back by half-past twelve,
And tot of rum to send him warm to sleep
In draughty dug-out frowsty with the fumes
Of coke, and full of snoring, weary men.
He pushed another bag along the top,
Craning his body outward; then a flare
Gave one white glimpse of No Man's Land and wire;
And as he dropped his head the instant split
His startled life with lead, and all went out.
Scheme | AXXXXBXC DXEXXXXEXXX XXXXFX AGXFX XXXXDXX XXBX XCXG XFXXX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Tetractys (20%) |
Metre | 11001110101 100110111 0111010101 1111010111 1101011101 10110101011 10010111010 1001011101 1011111111 1101011011 1101100111 100101101 0101111101 1011111101 01010101111 0111010101 0101010101 01110011111 1011010101 0111011101 0010110101 0101010101 1101010101 01110101001 1111010101 11001110101 1111011101 1111010101 0111110001 0111110111 110111011 011100011 110101111 0101010101 1111010111 011110101 0111010111 1111110111 110101010 1111111011 0101110111 1111011111 0111111111 01111101 1101110101 1101010101 111010101 11111111010 0111110101 1101110111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 2,179 |
Words | 404 |
Sentences | 11 |
Stanzas | 8 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 11, 6, 5, 7, 4, 4, 5 |
Lines Amount | 50 |
Letters per line (avg) | 35 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 218 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 50 |
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Submitted on August 03, 2020
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 2:02 min read
- 2 Views
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"A Working Party" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 9 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/56638/a-working-party>.
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