Analysis of The Dream
Siegfried Sassoon 1886 (Matfield) – 1967 (Heytesbury)
Moonlight and dew-drenched blossom, and the scent
Of summer gardens; these can bring you all
Those dreams that in the starlit silence fall:
Sweet songs are full of odours.
While I went
Last night in drizzling dusk along a lane,
I passed a squalid farm; from byre and midden
Came the rank smell that brought me once again
A dream of war that in the past was hidden.
Up a disconsolate straggling village street
I saw the tired troops trudge: I heard their feet.
The cheery Q.M.S. was there to meet
And guide our Company in...
I watched them stumble
Into some crazy hovel, too beat to grumble;
Saw them file inward, slipping from their backs
Rifles, equipment, packs.
On filthy straw they sit in the gloom, each face
Bowed to patched, sodden boots they must unlace,
While the wind chills their sweat through chinks and cracks.
I’m looking at their blistered feet; young Jones
Stares up at me, mud-splashed and white and jaded;
Out of his eyes the morning light has faded.
Old soldiers with three winters in their bones
Puff their damp Woodbines, whistle, stretch their toes:
They can still grin at me, for each of ’em knows
That I’m as tired as they are...
Can they guess
The secret burden that is always mine?—
Pride in their courage; pity for their distress;
And burning bitterness
That I must take them to the accursèd Line.
I cannot hear their voices, but I see
Dim candles in the barn: they gulp their tea,
And soon they’ll sleep like logs. Ten miles away
The battle winks and thuds in blundering strife.
And I must lead them nearer, day by day,
To the foul beast of war that bludgeons life.
Scheme | ABBCADDXX EEEXFFCCCCC CGGCCCXCHCCH CXIJIJ |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 101110001 1101011111 1110010101 111111 111 11010010101 1101011101 1011111101 01111001110 1011101 11010111111 01011111 01101000 11110 011101011110 1111010111 100101 11011100111 111101111 1011111101 1101110111 11111101010 11110101110 1101110011 111110111 11111111111 11110111 111 010101111 10110101101 010100 1111110111 1101110111 1100011111 0111111101 01010101001 0111110111 101111111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,615 |
Words | 298 |
Sentences | 17 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 9, 11, 12, 6 |
Lines Amount | 38 |
Letters per line (avg) | 33 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 312 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 72 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 11, 2023
- 1:29 min read
- 69 Views
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"The Dream" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 12 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/34941/the-dream>.
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