Rupert Brooke - Peace Analysis

Now, God be thanked Who has matched us with His hour, 
And caught our youth, and wakened us from sleeping, 
With hand made sure, clear eye, and sharpened power, 
To turn, as swimmers into cleanness leaping, 
Glad from a world grown old and cold and weary, 
Leave the sick hearts that honour could not move, 
And half-men, and their dirty songs and dreary, 
And all the little emptiness of love!

Oh! we, who have known shame, we have found release there,
Where there's no ill, no grief, but sleep has mending,
Naught broken save this body, lost but breath; 
Nothing to shake the laughing heart's long peace there 
But only agony, and that has ending; 
And the worst friend and enemy is but Death.

Title - poem is about war but Brooke calls the poem the opposite - shows he finds peace in war.

• 1st line - Thanking God for the honour and opportunity to go to war 
• 2nd line - Picked them whilst they are still young and able to fight// finally doing what they need to do
• 3rd line - Good soldier qualities // sculpted by God
• 4th line - ''cleanness leaping'' = 'dive in' - enthusiastic to go to war
• 5th+6th lines - Not full men if they didn't go to war
• 8th line - doesn't value relationships highly (came out of a relationship recently before writing this poem).
• 9th line - Sinners have found repentance by going to war 
• 10th line - sleep - death - peaceful/calming
• 11th+12th lines - His body is broken but his spirit is not
• 14th line - friend and enemy contrast each other // death is capitalised and personified which gives it importance.

'The Last Meeting' Analysis

• 'The Last Meeting' was written to remember Siegfried Sassoon's friend, David Thomas. 
• Enjambment used throughout to show the war was continuous//gets across Sassoon's ideas clearly and elegantly, as he is able to carry his ideas throughout the poem. 
• ''I will go up the hill once more to find the face of him that I have lost'' - personal pronouns// may be that he is going to one last battle and he believes this will be payback for the loss of his friend//may be a metaphor for trying to come to terms with his friend's death.
• ''From the earth that might not keep him long'' - body may be destroyed from the fighting the men do.//loss of his presence from the atmosphere.  
• Stanza 2 recalls Sassoon's early impressions of Flixecourt (commune of Northern France).
• ''A little longer i'll delay, and then he'll be more glad to hear my feet'' - he will wait a bit longer until he dies and joins David Thomas in after-life. 
• ''But he will loom above me like a tree'' - David will be watching over Sassoon. 
•  ''Quick shattering war leapt upon France and called her men to fight'' - used to emphasise how quick the outbreak of war was as men were forced into going to war immediately and to leave their lives behind.
•  ''But now they slept; I was afraid to speak'' - semi-colon used to show the impact the deaths in the war had on the other soldiers.
• ''I called him, once; then listened: nothing mixed:'' repetitive usage of colons to create pauses in the sentence and to show Sassoon's uneasiness at his friend's death.
• ''The innocence that strives me''- imagery of the naivety of the soldiers due to their ages. 
• ''I know that he is lost among the stars'' - he is coming to terms with the loss of his friend; something which may have been his been his goal at the start of the poem.
• ''Though his hushed voice may call me in the stir of whispering trees...of brooks that leap and tumble down green hills...'' - nature reminds him that his friend's spirit lives on. 
• ''And youth that dying, touched my lips so strong'' - imagery// death has made him fully understand the reality of war and how the young boys are suffering so brutally.

Two Fusiliers Analysis

Two Fusiliers - Robert Graves

AND have we done with War at last?

Well, we’ve been lucky devils both,

And there’s no need of pledge or oath

To bind our lovely friendship fast,

By firmer stuff

Close bound enough.

By wire and wood and stake we’re bound,

By Fricourt and by Festubert,

By whipping rain, by the sun’s glare,

By all the misery and loud sound,

By a Spring day,

By Picard clay.

Show me the two so closely bound

As we, by the red bond of blood,

By friendship, blossoming from mud,

By Death: we faced him, and we found

Beauty in Death,

In dead men breath The first stanza states the strength of their friendship. The second stanza states the events that shaped their friendship/ comradeship. The third stanza challenges Sassoon to find a friendship stronger as theirs has been formed by death. The tone is one of optimism, suggesting that there is still hope for humanity and also rejoicing the fact that something good has come out of such horror. --> the ABBA rhyme scheme in first stanza gives this tone of optimism especially. Repetition of ‘By’ enforces the idea that it was due to a range of experiences on the front that their friendship was formed. ''By whipping rain, by the sun’s glare'' is an oxymoron, which displays that the men have experienced contrasting things together (the weather) and it shows that their friendship has carried on through the seasons. ''As we, by the red bond of blood, By friendship, blossoming from mud,'' - their friendship has strengthened from sights of blood and mud - two things which are natural and thus imply a raw and close bond.