Douglas changes the tone of the poem gradually through stanza by stanza. The first stanza is based on a common everyday war experience. The tone in this stanza is showing that time has past. The first stanza contains a double meaning-in the first line in “Combatants gone” the double meaning is referring to the army, it is telling the reader that either the armies have moved on to another battlefield or that they have both been wiped out. The last line of the first stanza indicates to the reader that the ‘soldier sprawling in the sun’ is harmless; this is contrasted in the next stanza.
“The frowning barrel of his gun”- The opening words to the second stanza. I found this quite threatening, a description of the soldier who has just been described as being harmless by sprawling in the sun, its as if he is being identified with the gun e.g. the gun overshadows his humanity. Between the first and the second stanza there is a comparison of the soldier. First of all in the first stanza he is described as harmless but then in the second verse he is described as being a demon/devil,
“As we came on that day, he hit my tank with one like the entry of a demon”
Not only is Douglas notifying the reader that the soldier is a demon- he is also telling the reader that the soldier hit an enemy vehicle
“Nightmare ground”
“Look”- the command to tell the reader to look more closely at something is the opening word to the third verse. This verse has a plea – “Vergissmeinicht” – don’t forget me. The plea is written on a photo found by the soldiers who returned to the battle field. The photograph has an enscryption on it – ‘Steffi Vergissmeinicht’ – it is signed in a copybook gothic script format, this style of writing would have taken some time before it was complete. This style of writing leads the reader to believe that the girl who sent the photo is young and trying to impress someone. This is a human touch, which I found moving. In this verse, verse 3, the mood begins to turn gradually, now the soldier that was branded a demon is described as a loving man, so the soldier is being described as two people- a demon and a loving man.
“We see him almost with content abased and seeming to have paid” – A description in the 4th verse telling that the dead soldier has paid for something i.e. as if the soldier owes something. The soldiers who have found him seem to be pleased for two reasons one that it is him lying there and not them and also to see him humiliated – because it was a hard battle. In this stanza there is a metaphor and a simile. The metaphor is in the description of his eyes ‘paper’. The simile is ‘like a cave’. In this stanza the dead soldier is mocked, he is lying dead and useless where as his gun is still alive – Douglas is making the point that how frail humans are compared to our weaponry during wars. When they look at the soldier they see no fear anymore but when the gun overshadows they all seem to be in a state of fear.
The last stanza is all to with the universal statement that Douglas has imposed in this poem. The last stanza talks about how you can’t separate the two men i.e. the good side and bad side, so when the enemy goes down so does the loving man.
I enjoyed the poem. Most of the descriptions were very vivid, most of all I found the universal greatly touching. I enjoyed how Douglas put a deeper message into the poem as it went on