Untitled (‘When you see…’) - C.H.Sorley

Form:

- Continuous text, which may convey his shock at the “millions of the mouthless dead”.
- The use of alliteration: “say not soft things as other men have said”, the alliteration helps to soften what the poet is portraying.

Language:

- The dead are described as “mouthless” – so there’s an inability to have their voices heard – even though the scale of human loss is evident, war still continues; the politicians don’t try to stop it – proving there’s no meaningful conversation between life and death.
- The poet presents the reality and brutality of war by the use of violent and graphic imagery: “heaped on each gashed head”.

Structure:

- By ending the poem bluntly by the use of a full-stop, it presents the idea that death is inevitable, and as the last line states “death has made all his for evermore”, it shows how death is relentless.
- The caesura in the fourth line helps to puts emphasis on the word “remember”, hinting that this is something the home-front shouldn’t forget.

Tone:

- The poet creates quite a haunting and ghostly feel to the poem, as the battalions are described as “pale”.
- Shows a disregard for life as he states that “it is easy to be dead”, suggesting that death is better than life.
- Lack of respect for the dead soldiers; you shouldn’t pay respect to them as they don’t deserve “tears”, “nor honour”.

Reader response:

- Modern day readers would be confronted with the reality of war due to the graphic imagery within the poem.
- Any war veterans would see this poem as a memory and a reminder of what they endured.

Links :

- Death is an escape from life: ‘Exposure’ by Wilfred Owen.
- Lack of respect for the dead men: ‘In Parenthesis’ by David Jones.