Poem

From: Layla Abdulhameed Al-Elaiw.

To: Dr. Ashraf.

Subject: Poetry 7.

Date: 1-2-1423 AH.

* The Text:

Let the boy try along this bayonet-blade

How cold steel is, and keen with hunger of blood;

Blue with all malice, like a madman's flash;

And thinly drawn with famishing for flesh.

Lend him to stroke these blind, blunt bullet-heads

Which long to muzzle in the hearts of lads.

Or give him cartridges of fine zinc teeth,

Sharp with the sharpness of grief and death.

For his teeth seem for laughing round an apple.

There lurk no claws behind his fingers supple;

And God will grow no talons at his heels,

Nor antlers through the thickness of his curls.

* Who is Wilfred Owen?

Critical Analysis

* The Form:

This poem is written in form of stanzas. It gives to us in three quatrains; each contains four lines of verse. It’s written in a closed form because it followed a specific pattern. It’s also simple form.

* The Rhyme Scheme:

The common rhyme of this poem is aa bb from the beginning to the end. Although it’s not the common rhyme for quatrain but it creates some sort of music. The first stanza serves as a good example:

Let the boy try along this bayonet-blade

How cold steel is, and keen with hunger of blood;

Blue with all malice, like a madman's flash;

And thinly drawn with famishing for flesh.

Also in this poem, we have a crossed rhyme, such as in the third stanza:

For his teeth seem for laughing round an apple.

There lurk no claws behind his fingers supple;

* The rhythm:

This poem is written in iambic pentameter, each line contains ten syllables; five units of (weak/strong), except some lines contain nine or eleven syllables.

We can scan the poem as the following:

Let the | boy try | along this | bayo | net-blade

How cold | steel is, | and keen | with hunger | of blood;

Blue with | all mal| ice, like | a mad | man's flash;

And thin | ly drawn | with fam | ishing | for flesh.

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