THERE they go marching all in step so gay!
Smooth-cheeked and golden, food for shells and guns.
Blithely they go as to a wedding day,
The mothers' sons.
The drab street stares to see them row on row
On the high tram-tops, singing like the lark.
Too careless-gay for courage, singing they go
Into the dark.
With tin whistles, mouth-organs, any noise,
They pipe the way to glory and the grave;
Foolish and young, the gay and golden boys
Love cannot save.
High heart! High courage! The poor girls they kissed
Run with them : they shall kiss no more, alas!
Out of the mist they stepped-into the mist
Singing they pass.
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In this poem the word 'gay' is used in the first 3 verses as the soldiers are happy to be going to war and fighting for their country and they don't know what they will meet.The last verse is describing how they have now died once they arrived at the front line.
ReplyDeleteThe author Hinkson was 55 when she wrote this peom and so could have been descrbing her son or one of her relatives going off to war or just relating to her past and what she has seen.
The poem uses alternative rhyming, a 4line structure, emjambenmnet and a 10, 10, 10, 4 syllable structure.
That was group 2
ReplyDeletemega faggit
DeleteThe poem uses a simple 4 line structure like most other poems this gives it a steady flow. The poem uses alternate rhyming e.g 'gay'and 'day' and 'guns' and 'sons' which helps keep a rhythm flowing.
ReplyDeleteThis poem is about people bieng happy aboiut going to war to fight for their country and it goes on to how they willl be sad about what they miss.
felicity!!! =)))
The syllables in the lines go 10, 10, 10, 4!!!! This is very similar to the other poem we read (perhaps). there is also a case of emjambment - e.g. the poor girls they kissed
ReplyDeleterun with them:.......
i think that katherine Tynan Hickson was writing this poem because either one of her sons went to fight in the war and shes remembering the day he left, or its just a memory about the war in general. she was around 50 when she wrote this!!!
katie rees :)
This poem has quite a happy tone to it. The soliders are happy and excited because they are going off to war and the writer doesn't write about anyone else feeling so that's how the reader feels. However, at the end it says 'out of the mist they stepped'. This gives the impression an unclear future for the solidiers so it seems that she understands that there is danger ahead. She also describes the boys as 'foolish and young' which implies that she thinks they are stupid to be feeling so happy. I think this poem was written to express how when soldiers went off to war, they didn't always bravely say goodbye to their loved ones .
ReplyDeleteLaurie :)
Or they were oblivious to what actually was going to happen during the war and joined it to show their pride for their country or for popularity and such.
Deletemega faggit
DeleteTynan was born on 23 January 1861, into a large farming family in Clondalkin, County Dublin. She was educated at a convent school in Drogheda. Her poems were first published in 1878. Tynan went on to play a major part in Dublin literary circles, until she married Henry Albert Hinkson in 1898 and moved to England; later she lived at Claremorris, County Mayo when her husband was a magistrate there from 1914 until 1919.
ReplyDeleteFor a while, Tynan was a close associate of William Butler Yeats (who may have proposed marriage and been rejected, around 1885), and later a correspondent of Francis Ledwidge. She is said to have written over 100 novels; there were some unsurprising comments about a lack of self-criticism in her output. Her Collected Poems appeared in 1930; she also wrote five autobiographical volumes.
Joining the Colours was written in 1914, the first year of World War 1, when she was living in Claremorris, County Mayo, Ireland with her husband. Obviously the soldiers in this poem are Irish. The poem tells of a regiment of soldiers leaving Dublin to fight in France; written from a female view point (the ones left behind) the poem directly contrasts images of the innocent ignorance of the young soldiers with images of death. The poet speaks of the sad realization that the love felt for these men by the women left at home “cannot save” the soldiers from their uncertain futures and likely deaths.
Tynan died in Wimbledon, London, in 1931 at the age of 70.
group 2
Felicity, Alexia, Katie and Laurie
where can i find the whole summary and analysis of this poem
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