Analysis of The Sentry
Wilfred Owen 1893 (Oswestry) – 1918 (Sambre–Oise Canal)
We'd found an old Boche dug-out, and he knew,
And gave us hell, for shell on frantic shell
Hammered on top, but never quite burst through.
Rain, guttering down in waterfalls of slime
Kept slush waist high, that rising hour by hour,
Choked up the steps too thick with clay to climb.
What murk of air remained stank old, and sour
With fumes of whizz-bangs, and the smell of men
Who'd lived there years, and left their curse in the den,
If not their corpses. . . .
There we herded from the blast
Of whizz-bangs, but one found our door at last.
Buffeting eyes and breath, snuffing the candles.
And thud! flump! thud! down the steep steps came thumping
And splashing in the flood, deluging muck --
The sentry's body; then his rifle, handles
Of old Boche bombs, and mud in ruck on ruck.
We dredged him up, for killed, until he whined
"O sir, my eyes -- I'm blind -- I'm blind, I'm blind!"
Coaxing, I held a flame against his lids
And said if he could see the least blurred light
He was not blind; in time he'd get all right.
"I can't," he sobbed. Eyeballs, huge-bulged like squids
Watch my dreams still; but I forgot him there
In posting next for duty, and sending a scout
To beg a stretcher somewhere, and floundering about
To other posts under the shrieking air.
Those other wretches, how they bled and spewed,
And one who would have drowned himself for good, --
I try not to remember these things now.
Let dread hark back for one word only: how
Half-listening to that sentry's moans and jumps,
And the wild chattering of his broken teeth,
Renewed most horribly whenever crumps
Pummelled the roof and slogged the air beneath --
Through the dense din, I say, we heard him shout
"I see your lights!" But ours had long died out.
Scheme | AXABCBCDDEFFGXHGHFXXIIEJKKJ XXLLXMEMKK |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1111111011 0111111101 1011110111 1100101011 111111010110 1101111111 11110111010 1111100111 11110111001 11110 1110101 11111110111 01010110010 01111011110 01000111 0110111010 1111010111 1111110111 1111111111 1011010111 0111110111 1111011111 111111111 1111110111 010111001001 110101010001 1101100101 110111101 0111110111 1111010111 1111111101 1100111101 00110011101 0111000101 101010101 1011111111 11111101111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,726 |
Words | 321 |
Sentences | 20 |
Stanzas | 2 |
Stanza Lengths | 27, 10 |
Lines Amount | 37 |
Letters per line (avg) | 36 |
Words per line (avg) | 9 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 659 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 161 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 22, 2023
- 1:38 min read
- 131 Views
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