Analysis of The Young Dead Soldiers Do Not Speak
Archibald MacLeish 1892 (Glencoe) – 1982 (Boston)
The young dead soldiers do not speak.
Nevertheless, they are heard in the still houses:
who has not heard them?
They have a silence that speaks for them at night
and when the clock counts.
They say: We were young. We have died.
Remember us.
They say: We have done what we could
but until it is finished it is not done.
They say: We have given our lives but until it is finished
no one can know what our lives gave.
They say: Our deaths are not ours: they are yours,
they will mean what you make them.
They say: Whether our lives and our deaths were for
peace and a new hope or for nothing we cannot say,
it is you who must say this.
We leave you our deaths. Give them their meaning.
We were young, they say. We have died; remember us.
Scheme | X XA XX XB XX XX XA XXX XB |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 01110111 00111100110 11111 11010111111 01011 11101111 0101 11111111 10111101111 1111101011011110 111111011 111011110111 1111111 1110101010101 1001111101101 1111111 11110111110 101111110101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 742 |
Words | 148 |
Sentences | 15 |
Stanzas | 9 |
Stanza Lengths | 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 3, 2 |
Lines Amount | 18 |
Letters per line (avg) | 31 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 63 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 16 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on May 03, 2023
- 44 sec read
- 527 Views
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"The Young Dead Soldiers Do Not Speak" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 10 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/3771/the-young-dead-soldiers-do-not-speak>.
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