From the Somme - Leslie Coulson

Form:          
Is an example of Lyric poetry: has the viewpoint of a minstrel or singer.

Language:
Poet begins by using soft childlike/adolescent imagery and language in the opening stanzas, whilst describing his life before the war (‘Deep in the forest I made a melody’). However the poet contrasts this with sharp tone that abruptly changes the mood in the second to last stanza (‘Now I have cast my broken toys aside/ And flung my lute away.’)demonstrating how the war dramatically changed the character of the men whom fought in the war.

Structure:
-Six quatrains with alternate rhyme
-First three lines of a stanza are iambic pentameter which leads to a ‘cut off’ in the final line. This has the effect of emphasising the final line.

Tone :
Soft tone in the earlier stanzas is contrasted by a much sharper one in the final two stanzas, this emphasises the ‘change of character’ which the persona/ poet has been subject to/ undergone.

Reader responses:
- Perhaps suggests that young soldiers (adolescence) were forced to mature and grow up too fast, carelessly throwing away childhood.
-The poet may have attempted to demonstrate the way in which war gradually degraded the minds of those who fought within it.

Links:

-‘Break of Day in the Trenches’ by Rosenberg also hints towards the idea of a wasted youth.
- ‘The Sentry’ by Owen also presents the mental scares of conflict that these soldiers bore. ‘Watch my dreams still; but I forgot him here’ suggests that although the poet has chosen to forget this event, it replays to him in his sleep.

Language

·         Immediately ethereal images are presented of ‘fairy rings’ suggesting a Georgian style of writing on behalf of Coulson.

·         The poet uses sibilance of ‘sing to sea and sky’ to create a softer rhythm which is not typical of this section which perhaps suggests that the world pre-war was peaceful. As well as this ‘silvered silence’ implies that due to the boom of the guns etc. there is no peace anymore and therefore it is treasured implied by the regal colour of ‘silvered’.

·         The poet uses bird imagery of ‘larks’ which is a symbol for freedom and escapism. It may be a paradox to horrors of war.

·         As the end of the poem approaches the tone changes to become more bitter and twisted and therefore shocks the reader. From ‘for my poor lips to tell’, the poet alludes to being injured and hurt; alternatively, he may be suggesting that everything in the war in censored and therefore alluding to the ignorance of people at the home front.

Structure

·         Iambic pentameter to iambic triameter which initially drags out the notes and sounds to create an ethereal world but later develops to more vicious.

·         There is a regular rhyme scheme to suggest the Georgian nature of the poem which adds a romanticized tone.

Tone

·         The tone is romantic and Georgian suggested by the sibilance created throughout the poem.