In honor of Armistice Day (and Veteran’s Day) on November 11, I’m going to be analyzing a poem written during World War I. I am not what most people would call a “poetry person,” but this is one of the very few poems I will read aloud to others. The poet’s name is Ewart Alan Mackintosh, and he fought during the Great War. He never saw the end of the struggle, as he was killed in action in November of 1917. This is a poem he wrote to honor one of his soldiers.
Before I continue, this post is dedicated to all men and women who have served or are currently serving the United States of America as a serviceman or woman, and in a special way to all of those who have given their lives for their country. I thank you for your sacrifice, your bravery, and your honor.
In Memoriam for Private D. Sutherland
So you were David’s father And he was your only son And the new-cut peats were rotting And the work was left undone Because of an old man weeping Just an old man in pain For David, his son David, That will not come again. Oh, the letters he wrote you And I can see them still, Not a word of the fighting But just the sheep on the hill And how you should get the crops in Ere the year got stormier And the Boches have got his body And I was his officer. You were only David’s father But I had fifty sons When we went up in the evening Under the arch of the guns And we came back at twilight, O God! I heard them call To me for help and pity That could not help at all. Oh, never will I forget you, My men that trusted me More my sons than your fathers’, For they could only see The helpless little babies And the young men in their pride. They could not see you dying, And hold you while you died. Happy and young and gallant, They saw their first born go, But not the strong limbs broken And the beautiful men brought low, The piteous writhing bodies, They screamed, “Don’t leave me, sir”, For they were only your fathers But I was your officer.
A quick note: “Boches”(pronounced “bosh-ez”) is a derogatory (and offensive) nickname used by the English to refer to German soldiers. Many such nicknames were used among soldiers of both sides.
For those familiar with analysis, this is going to be slightly more informal than a typical poetry explication, and for those who aren’t familiar: analyses are mostly used to show how the mechanics of a poem work together to achieve the overall effect. Without further ado: the analysis.
This is probably one of the most horrible poems I’ve ever read in my life. The poem itself is broken into five stanzas with eight lines each, with a relatively simple rhyme scheme (abdb, defe). (In other words, the second and fourth lines rhyme, as do the sixth and eighth lines.) The meter is not entirely regular, which suggests the poet is more concerned with a general feeling of rhythm rather than following a specific metrical pattern, though overall the poem could be described as “iambic,” one of the “easiest” meters for poetry in English. The simplicity of the meter and rhyme scheme aid the poem in conveying its message directly, as there is no reason to be distracted by the meter. The direct nature of the poem is best represented in the second stanza, when the speaker abruptly moves from describing a rustic lifestyle to David’s missing body.
While the poem overall evokes a sense of loss, the tone of the poem is bitter, made even more so by the hint of jealousy the speaker seems to have. It seems as if the speaker would rather be one of the biological fathers of the fallen soldiers, as he says “they were only your fathers.” If he were the biological father of one of these soldiers, he would only have to endure the loss of one son, and like these fathers, he would ignorant of the horrors of war. Each father only sees his son as “happy and young and gallant.” The poem strongly implies that the officer has the worst job–perhaps even worse than that of the dying soldiers, because he is “helpless.” He feels like a cog in a great machine (typical imagery from the time period, even if not explicitly stated here), unable to stop his “fifty sons” from dying gruesomely in front of him.
The bitterness is even more pronounced when the speaker changes who he addresses. The first three stanzas address David’s father, but in the last two stanzas, the speaker turns to address his dead soldiers. This pivot functions as an introspective turn for the speaker, as the young men he addresses cannot hear him; he can only address his memory of them. In the first two stanzas, the officer recounts how David would send letters to his father, urging the man to do the farm work before the storms came in. The reader, however, already knows that this very work is being left unattended because David’s father is in mourning. David’s father has a rustic and simple life, contrasted with the “arch of the guns;” David himself also knew of this contrast, as he deliberately kept “word of the fighting” out of his letters, so as not to bring the horrors of war home. Unfortunately, despite David’s efforts, war rudely interrupts the pastoral scenes in the last two lines of the second stanza which point out David’s death and missing body. The third stanza begins the speaker’s introspective turn, as he begins to liken himself to the troops’ biological fathers. By the fourth stanza, the biological fathers have been forgotten, and the speaker is left to address the haunting memories of the men he led in battle.
As soon as the speaker addresses the men, the true horrors of war–death and suffering–are laid bare. Worse than death is the gut-wrenching duty of the officer to watch his men as they lay dying, as he gazes on their “piteous writhing bodies.” The officer implies that it is a far easier task to accept the death of a son rather than to watch them die in this manner. The final stanza is perhaps the most poignant, especially as the speaker quotes his dying men: “Don’t leave me, sir”. In that line, the quote is marked off by commas, indicating caesuras (or pauses) in the poem. As the poem indicates, this line is “screamed” by the soldiers, making this quote a kind of crescendo to the poem. The caesura after the word “sir” forces the person reciting the poem to slow down, letting the full force of that scream sink in. After the screams of the soldiers, the final two lines are quieter, made more poignant by their quiet inflection.
Despite the somewhat lengthy explication above, I believe that if a poem is truly well-written, it does not need an analysis. It convey emotion strongly without needing to be picked apart. This poem is indescribably sorrowful, and perhaps the saddest thing about this poem isn’t anything written on the page. It’s the fact that only a generation later, the sons of the shattered veterans of World War I were asked to make the same sacrifices as Private D. Sutherland.
The United States of America thanks the men and women who have made those sacrifices throughout the course of its history.
Happy Veteran’s Day.
Image: Unsplash.com Photographer: Aaron Burden.