Certain people would not clean their buttons,
Nor polish buckles after latest fashions,
Preferred their hair long, putties comfortable,
Barely escaping hanging, indeed hardly able;
In Bridge and smoking without army cautions
Spending hours that sped like evil for quickness,
(While others burnished brasses, earned promotions)
These were those ones who jested in the trench,
While others argued of army ways, and wrenched
What little soul they had still further from shape,
And died off one by one, or became officers,
Without the first of dream, the ghost of notions
Of ever becoming soldiers, or smart and neat,
Surprised as ever to find the army capable
Of sounding 'Lights out' to break a game of Bridge,
As to fear candles would set a barn alight:
In Artois or Picardy they lie - free of useless fashions.
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ReplyDeleteI think that in the first six lines of "The Bohemians' it focuses on how certain people would not do as they were told to do. They would not clean their buttons and they preffered their hair long. They didn't take army cautions, and they were not worried about getting praise or promoted.
ReplyDeleteWhereas "the others" burnished brasses, and did they did as they were told and followed the rest of the crowd. I think that the poem shows the half of the army who accepted the war and their positions, and the other half that were not happy with being forced, did everything they could to do the least work possible and to stay their own person.
The rhythm of the lines makes the poem fit together as there is no obvious rhyming pattern.
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