In the second stanza, the word ‘think’ arises again, joining the sestet and octave. ‘All evil shed away’, means that the person who has sacrificed their body for their country cannot sin any more because they are dead. This may also mean that they may have been forgiven for killing the enemy to protect their country and its rights of freedom. ‘A pulse in the eternal mind’ has a spiritual or religious meaning. It could mean that all of the people, who knew him in the war and his family, still remember him and will do forever. ‘Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given’, continues the patriotism and emphasizes his sacrifice for England. The last three lines describe the ‘Good of England’. The last line ‘In hearts at peace, under an English heaven’, can have two meanings. The first one is that his heart is at rest because he has died, and the second is he will be bringing peace to the world. In both stanza’s think means imagine. So in other words he wants you to image if he was dead, then he talks about the things his body would do after he had died. Then he talks about imaging that all his evil has been shed away and he will be at peace. The repetition of the word England shows the importance of England to the poet and ‘the soldier’.
Seigfried Sassoon – ‘They’
This poem explains the horrors of war and the effect on the soldier’s who returned from the mud and gun fighting. ‘The Bishop tells us: ‘When the boys come back, they will not be the same;’. This explanation of the war is inadequate from a Bishop. Though what he says is true, he doesn’t really explain it very well. This may be to cover up his idea’s about the war. The Bishop also says that the enemies that the soldier’s are fighting are an anti – Christ (against God). The bloodshed of these people will stop the ‘anti – Christ’. The Bishop also says that the soldier’s have ‘challenged Death and dared him face to face’. The second stanza describes the effects of the war on the soldier’s. ‘George lost both his legs, and Bill’s stone blind; Jim’s shot through the lungs and died; and Bert’s gone syphilitic’. These are only a few of the things that could happen to the soldiers who went and fought for their country. The second last line ‘You’ll not find a chap who’s served that hasn’t found some change’. This shows that the soldiers had obviously seen a lot of bloodshed and mangled bodies during the war. Then the Bishop finishes the poem with an inconclusive explanation again, ‘The ways of God are strange’.
William Collins – How Sleep the Brave
The first line of the poem describes the soldiers being remembered as hero’s/heroic. ‘By all their country’s wishes blest!’, the country that the soldiers came from are blessing them for their efforts in the war. The poet assures us that the fallen soldiers have not been forgotten. In the second stanza the first two lines describe ‘fairy hands’ which could be a description of angels ringing their ‘knell’. A knell is a funeral bell, so this would signal their death. The second line ‘By forms unseen their dirge is sung’. This means that their dirge (a funeral song) is being sung by the angels above. ‘There honour comes, a pilgrim grey’, this means that the dead, have been given honour after they have died and they are being remembered. The forth line of the second stanza describes the ground of where the soldiers dies as blessed.
The Soldier is a very patriotic poem and Brooke uses if a lot. This means that there is a possibility of death for him, but he has accepted his fate. He seems to glorify war; he doesn’t show the bad sides of war, death or suffering. He just says that when a soldier dies he will be remembered
Siegfried Sassoon’s They describes the horrors of war rather than The Soldier which doesn’t. It explains the different affects that the war has had on different people. People have lost legs, gone blind, shot, and got lots of different diseases.
William Collins describes what happens to the soldier after he has died. He describes the more spiritual side of the death of the soldiers. He honours the dead soldiers for their effort in the war.
