Contextual information

During the Battle of the Somme 1916, the 38th Welsh division fought for five days to take Mametz Wood, resulting in 4,000 casualties and 600 dead.

Themes

Three themes interlinked in this poem: death, nature, art.

Imagery

‘china plate of a shoulder blade’
This image may reflect the fragility not only of the human body but also the lives that were lost during the war.

Sheers uses aesthetic images such as ‘broken mosaic of bone’ to indicate how the death and destruction of the battle have, through his poetry, become art.

Structure

Regular structure, three line stanzas, perhaps reflects the military order encapsulated in the commander’s instruction to the men ‘to walk, not run’.

 

 

d diamaccusantium doloremque laudantium, totam rem aperiam eaquep. Store veritatis et quasi architecto beatae vitae dicta sunt, explicabo.