Analysis of Aftermath
Siegfried Sassoon 1886 (Matfield) – 1967 (Heytesbury)
Have you forgotten yet?...
For the world's events have rumbled on since those gagged days,
Like traffic checked while at the crossing of city-ways:
And the haunted gap in your mind has filled with thoughts that flow
Like clouds in the lit heaven of life; and you're a man reprieved to go,
Taking your peaceful share of Time, with joy to spare.
But the past is just the same--and War's a bloody game...
Have you forgotten yet?...
Look down, and swear by the slain of the War that you'll never forget.
Do you remember the dark months you held the sector at Mametz--
The nights you watched and wired and dug and piled sandbags on parapets?
Do you remember the rats; and the stench
Of corpses rotting in front of the front-line trench--
And dawn coming, dirty-white, and chill with a hopeless rain?
Do you ever stop and ask, 'Is it all going to happen again?'
Do you remember that hour of din before the attack--
And the anger, the blind compassion that seized and shook you then
As you peered at the doomed and haggard faces of your men?
Do you remember the stretcher-cases lurching back
With dying eyes and lolling heads--those ashen-grey
Masks of the lads who once were keen and kind and gay?
Have you forgotten yet?...
Look up, and swear by the green of the spring that you'll never forget.
Scheme | AbbccxxAa bbddxe feefgg Aa |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 110101 1010111011111 1101110101101 00101011111111 1100110110101111 101101111111 1011101010101 110101 1101101101111001 110100111101011 01110100101111 1101001001 110100110111 01101010110101 11101011111011001 110101101101001 001001010110111 11110101010111 1101001010101 110101011101 110111010101 110101 1101101101111001 |
Closest metre | Iambic heptameter |
Characters | 1,276 |
Words | 237 |
Sentences | 13 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 9, 6, 6, 2 |
Lines Amount | 23 |
Letters per line (avg) | 43 |
Words per line (avg) | 10 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 250 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 59 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on May 02, 2023
- 1:12 min read
- 949 Views
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"Aftermath" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/34836/aftermath>.
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