Analysis of Break of Day
Siegfried Sassoon 1886 (Matfield) – 1967 (Heytesbury)
There seemed a smell of autumn in the air
At the bleak end of night; he shivered there
In a dank, musty dug-out where he lay,
Legs wrapped in sand-bags,—lumps of chalk and clay
Spattering his face. Dry-mouthed, he thought, ‘To-day
We start the damned attack; and, Lord knows why,
Zero’s at nine; how bloody if I’m done in
Under the freedom of that morning sky!’
And then he coughed and dozed, cursing the din.
Was it the ghost of autumn in that smell
Of underground, or God’s blank heart grown kind,
That sent a happy dream to him in hell?—
Where men are crushed like clods, and crawl to find
Some crater for their wretchedness; who lie
In outcast immolation, doomed to die
Far from clean things or any hope of cheer,
Cowed anger in their eyes, till darkness brims
And roars into their heads, and they can hear
Old childish talk, and tags of foolish hymns.
He sniffs the chilly air; (his dreaming starts),
He’s riding in a dusty Sussex lane
In quiet September; slowly night departs;
And he’s a living soul, absolved from pain.
Beyond the brambled fences where he goes
Are glimmering fields with harvest piled in sheaves,
And tree-tops dark against the stars grown pale;
Then, clear and shrill, a distant farm-cock crows;
And there’s a wall of mist along the vale
Where willows shake their watery-sounding leaves,
He gazes on it all, and scarce believes
That earth is telling its old peaceful tale;
He thanks the blessed world that he was born...
Then, far away, a lonely note of the horn.
They’re drawing the Big Wood! Unlatch the gate,
And set Golumpus going on the grass;
He knows the corner where it’s best to wait
And hear the crashing woodland chorus pass;
The corner where old foxes make their track
To the Long Spinney; that’s the place to be.
The bracken shakes below an ivied tree,
And then a cub looks out; and ‘Tally-o-back!’
He bawls, and swings his thong with volleying crack,—
All the clean thrill of autumn in his blood,
And hunting surging through him like a flood
In joyous welcome from the untroubled past;
While the war drifts away, forgotten at last.
Now a red, sleepy sun above the rim
Of twilight stares along the quiet weald,
And the kind, simple country shines revealed
In solitudes of peace, no longer dim.
The old horse lifts his face and thanks the light,
Then stretches down his head to crop the green.
All things that he has loved are in his sight;
The places where his happiness has been
Are in his eyes, his heart, and they are good.
. . . .
Hark! there’s the horn: they’re drawing the Big Wood.
Scheme | AABBBCDCD EFEFCCXGXG GHGHGGIGIGGIJJ KGKGLMMLLNNOO PFXPQXQDR R |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1101110001 1011111101 0011011111 1101111101 10011111111 1101010111 10111101110 1001011101 0111011001 1101110011 110111111 1101011101 1111110111 11011111 01100111 1111110111 1100111101 0101110111 1101011101 1101011101 1100010101 01001010101 0101010111 010110111 11001110101 0111010111 1101010111 0101110101 1111100101 1101110101 1111011101 110111111 11010101101 110011101 01110101 1101011111 010101101 0101110111 1011010111 010101111 01011101011 110111111 1011110011 0101011101 01010100101 10110101011 1011010101 111010101 0011010101 01111101 0111110101 1101111101 1111111011 0101110011 1011110111 1 1101110011 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 2,559 |
Words | 462 |
Sentences | 22 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 9, 10, 14, 13, 9, 2 |
Lines Amount | 57 |
Letters per line (avg) | 34 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 327 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 77 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 04, 2023
- 2:18 min read
- 66 Views
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"Break of Day" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 13 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/34860/break-of-day>.
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