In the second verse, the tone is much sadder and darker. The phrases, ‘Far and near’ and ‘low and louder’ suggest that war is everywhere, and can be seen in different levels all over the world. Probably one of the most striking and powerful lines in the poem, ‘Dear to friends and food for powder’ is very shocking and adds a more personal theme to the poem, because the soldiers are now being seen as friends, fathers and real people instead of just toys in war. The ‘powder’ is gunpowder; the poet is hinting at the fact that the men are just food for the war, cannon fodder. The war is made to sound like a real living thing; this is a good example of personification. The final line of verse two, ‘Soldiers marching, all to die.’ is depressing and it emphasises the pointlessness and horror of war.
Verse three maintains the sad, depressing tone. There is more powerful and graphic imagery such as, ‘bleach the bones’, which is very sinister and shocking, and ‘of comrades slain’. ‘Slain’ does not just mean killed, it means “murdered”, and it outlines the brutality of war. Another graphic phrase is, ‘Lovely lads and dead and rotten’. These are contrasting images, and the writer is trying to put the idea across that innocent, good people can be killed in war for no reason. The final line of the verse, ‘None that go return again’ sums up A.E. Housman’s view on war- that is just something which takes the lives of anyone who fights in it and has no point whatsoever.
While in the fourth verse, it uses the instruments, to control the minds of all youthful members of the community and make them fight for their own country; with a bugle (a horn) and a fife (a flute). These instruments suggest the excitement in war which will add colour into the soldiers lives, it also shows the patriotism of war: “Far the calling bugles hollo,” and “High the screaming fife replies,”. People come from other villages and join the army to protect their country. All are in a file to receive their equipment and with their striking red uniform, they go to war, “Gay the files of scarlet follow:” The poem ends with a metaphor, suggesting regeneration, like the phoenix which rises from the ashes. This represents society and how it crumbles and then after a few years remerging more knowledgeable and better than it was: “Woman bore me, I will rise.” Also it could mean afterlife and you were born from a woman. When there is peace, there has to be war, that’s the meaning of the poem. The peace, “sleepy with the flow streams.” and war, “Soldiers marching, all to die.”
In both poems, they use similar devices such as similes, metaphors and personification. They were both set Pre 1914, the effectiveness of these poems has a very big impact because of these quotations: “Lovely lads and dead and rotten;” for the Idle Hill and for the Drum it’s this: “And burning towns, and ruined swains,” the two poem show the misery of war and it impacts the reader making them, feel more sorry for the people that went to war and the people will think war is not patriotic but it’s unpatriotic. The cultural and social background for ‘Drum’ and ‘Idle Hill’ are between wars.
From 1730-1783, this is period when Britain first industrialised. Many people started moving from the countryside to the cities and towns to find work in the new factories and mills. Many of these factories were cotton factories and the cotton came from the West Indies. Britain was heavily involved in the “Slave trade”. Britain was trying to build a big empire, so it could get more wealth. This involved the army travelling to many new places around the world. The army fought in places like India and Africa.
Between 1859 and 1936, there was one major historical change in Britain “the Industrial Revolution”. This revolution helped England become more powerful in Imperialism and Militarism. The Industrial Revolution was one of the causes of World War I.
One of the differences between the two poems is the structure and the form. ‘On the Idle Hill’ where it has four lines in each verse, it means the calm and peaceful times, with the pauses. The rhyme scheme is ‘ a,b,a,b’, it gives the regular beat which imitates the beat of the drum. Although in the ‘Drum’ the form is fast and furious, because it’s a longer stanza with 8 lines and with no pauses in it, so the poem gets faster and gives more impact than usual. The rhyme scheme is ‘aa,bb,cc and dd’ which contributes to reader’s imagination as they can hear the drum and it helps to display the image that the world is being enveloped by war and darkness.
In my conclusion, the poems, ‘On the Idle Hill’ and ‘The Drum’ give a powerful and vivid image about war and how destructive it can be, while it shows the excitement and thrill about war. Housman uses impact in two different ways: dreamy impact: “On the idle hill of summer,” and forceful impact “Soldiers marching, all to die.” while Scott uses devices more powerfully. These are not physically devices but spiritual. That’s the reason why I think that it would give a powerful impact on the people and give them reasons against war. Whereas, Housman’s poem is more thrilling and positive about war; Housman shows the excitement of war but with element of chaos and death.
