Analysis of The Next War
Wilfred Owen 1893 (Oswestry) – 1918 (Sambre–Oise Canal)
War's a joke for me and you,
Wile we know such dreams are true.
- Siegfried Sassoon
Out there, we've walked quite friendly up to Death,-
Sat down and eaten with him, cool and bland,-
Pardoned his spilling mess-tins in our hand.
We've sniffed the green thick odour of his breath,-
Our eyes wept, but our courage didn't writhe.
He's spat at us with bullets and he's coughed
Shrapnel. We chorussed when he sang aloft,
We whistled while he shaved us with his scythe.
Oh, Death was never enemy of ours!
We laughed at him, we leagued with him, old chum.
No soldier's paid to kick against His powers.
We laughed, -knowing that better men would come,
And greater wars: when each proud fighter brags
He wars on Death, for lives; not men, for flags.
Scheme | AAX BCCBDEED FGFGHH |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1011101 1111111 101 1111110111 1101011101 10110110101 110111111 101111010101 1111110011 101111101 1101111111 11110100110 1111111111 11011101110 1110110111 0101111101 1111111111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 731 |
Words | 140 |
Sentences | 10 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 3, 8, 6 |
Lines Amount | 17 |
Letters per line (avg) | 33 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 189 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 45 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 01, 2023
- 44 sec read
- 141 Views
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"The Next War" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/38551/the-next-war>.
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