Soldiers Poems

I am going to take parts of their poems and write what I think they mean.
Alan Seeger
Rendezvous

“When Spring comes back with rustling shade
And apple-blossoms fill the air--
I have a rendezvous with Death”

I feel like he is saying that Spring is peace. Spring is safe. When everything is beautiful and peaceful. And until then he has to struggle on this battlefield and fight death. Because death is coming for him and he hopes Spring comes before it catches him.

“It may be he shall take my hand
And lead me into his dark land”

Death is will take his hand. The dark land is when he is murdered and is no longer on this Earth.

Now after that I read the upper portion where Alan says,  "If it must be, let it come in the heat of action. Why flinch? It is by far the noblest form in which death can come. It is in a sense almost a privilege. . . ."

And I now realize that he was not running from death, but letting it catch him. He felt it is noble to die with honor, rather than to hide and run from the fate of most soldiers.

Wilfred Owen

Dulce Et Decorum Est



“Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,”

In this I picture men kneeling down in trenches. In unhealthy environments. He makes it sound that if they do not die on the field I battle then they will probably die of a sickness in the bunks.

Reading on the whole poem paints a horrendous image. Soldiers with terrible injuries and filled with sickness. Tired and just pushing to the end. Wilfred painted the war as it was not how the government portrayed it as.

John McCrae

In Flanders Fields

“In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky”

He is describing where soldiers lie. When he says in the sky, I can only guess that he means heaven.

“We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.”

When he describes their lives, he acts as if they were happy and loving life. When they were in war and in the harsh conditions.