Poem Found Here: "Here Dead We Lie" by A.E. Housman
The version I linked is from the poets.org website which is a quatrain; However, I analyzed a different version which is in two quatrains. I actually like this version better because there's more dramatic tension in the line breaks.
"Here dead we lie/ Because we did not choose" ends the line with a blame mentality. We didn't choose to die, but something else caused us to die, "To live and shame the land / From which we sprung." The first line of the two lines has more of a weird overall feel until we get to the specific in the next line of where they "sprung" or originated from. This brings a sense of nationalism and patriotism in a simple form.
The first line of the first stanza is the outcome of a mixture of emotions: blame in the second line, then a bigger reason as the purpose in the third line, and the last line focusing on the specific, but unnamed place in which these people lived.
The litotes from, "Life, to be sure, / Is nothing much to lose," brings a sense of sarcasm to what is lost. They are dead for the bigger cause. However, if read as though the lines are sincere the last two lines wold turn back on the "place they sprung" their homeland.
But the last two lines go back to them. These young men, "But young men think it is / And we were young." The emphasis of youth, their youth, brings out the sarcasm more in the previous two lines. The people, the youth mean more than just a shamed land.
The version I linked is from the poets.org website which is a quatrain; However, I analyzed a different version which is in two quatrains. I actually like this version better because there's more dramatic tension in the line breaks.
"Here dead we lie/ Because we did not choose" ends the line with a blame mentality. We didn't choose to die, but something else caused us to die, "To live and shame the land / From which we sprung." The first line of the two lines has more of a weird overall feel until we get to the specific in the next line of where they "sprung" or originated from. This brings a sense of nationalism and patriotism in a simple form.
The first line of the first stanza is the outcome of a mixture of emotions: blame in the second line, then a bigger reason as the purpose in the third line, and the last line focusing on the specific, but unnamed place in which these people lived.
The litotes from, "Life, to be sure, / Is nothing much to lose," brings a sense of sarcasm to what is lost. They are dead for the bigger cause. However, if read as though the lines are sincere the last two lines wold turn back on the "place they sprung" their homeland.
But the last two lines go back to them. These young men, "But young men think it is / And we were young." The emphasis of youth, their youth, brings out the sarcasm more in the previous two lines. The people, the youth mean more than just a shamed land.
Comments
Post a Comment