Analysis of I Stood With the Dead

Siegfried Sassoon 1886 (Matfield) – 1967 (Heytesbury)



I Stood with the Dead, so forsaken and still:
When dawn was grey I stood with the Dead.
And my slow heart said, 'You must kill, you must kill:
'Soldier, soldier, morning is red'.

On the shapes of the slain in their crumpled disgrace
I stared for a while through the thin cold rain...
'O lad that I loved, there is rain on your face,
'And your eyes are blurred and sick like the plain.'

I stood with the Dead ... They were dead; they were dead;
My heart and my head beat a march of dismay:
And gusts of the wind came dulled by the guns.
'Fall in!' I shouted; 'Fall in for your pay!'


Scheme ABAB CDCD BEXE
Poetic Form Quatrain 
Metre 11101101001 111111101 01111111111 10101011 101101011001 1110110111 11111111111 0111101101 11101101101 11011101101 0110111101 1011010111
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 581
Words 120
Sentences 9
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4
Lines Amount 12
Letters per line (avg) 36
Words per line (avg) 10
Letters per stanza (avg) 144
Words per stanza (avg) 39
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 20, 2023

35 sec read
91

Siegfried Sassoon

Siegfried Loraine Sassoon, CBE, MC was an eminent English poet, writer, and soldier. Decorated for bravery on the Western Front, he became one of the leading poets of the First World War. His poetry both described the horrors of the trenches, and satirised the patriotic pretensions of those who, in Sassoon's view, were responsible for a jingoism-fuelled war. He later won acclaim for his prose work, notably his three-volume fictionalised autobiography, collectively known as the "Sherston trilogy". more…

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