THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE
BY Alfred, Lord Tennyson
I IV
Pos
Half a league, half a league, Flashed all their sabres bare,
Pra
Half a league onward, Flashed as they turned in air the
All in the valley of Death Sabring the gunners there, Se
Rode the six hundred. Charging an army, while th
“Forward, the Light Brigade! All the world wondered.
Neg
Charge for the guns!” he said. Plunged in the battery-smoke ·
cr
Into the valley of Death Right through the line they broke; Of
Cossack and Russian cl
Rode the six hundred.
Reeled from the sabre stroke
Shattered and sundered.
II
Then they rode back, but not
“Forward, the Light Brigade!”
Not the six hundred. Fo
Was there a man dismayed? ↳ t
Not though the soldier knew V L
Someone had blundered. Cannon to right of them,
↳ t
a
Theirs not to make reply, Cannon to left of them, p
Theirs not to reason why, Cannon behind them >
↳ n
Theirs but to do and die. Volleyed and thundered; t
Into the valley of Death l
Stormed at with shot and shell,
Rode the six hundred. While horse and hero fell. STR
They that had fought so well Dac
III Came through the jaws of Death, one
unst
Cannon to right of them, Back from the mouth of hell, ↳ P
Cannon to left of them, All that was left of them, th
Cannon in front of them Left of six hundred. b
Volleyed and thundered; in
e
Stormed at with shot and shell, VI to
Boldly they rode and well, When can their glory fade?
Into the jaws of Death, O the wild charge they made! s
Into the mouth of hell All the world wondered. ↳
↳
Rode the six hundred. Honour the charge they made! c
Honour the Light Brigade, Tennyson is
Noble six hundred! the
to disgu
the fatalitie
futile
mission
y
LANGUAGE
~
-
>
Light Brigade had light biblically ref
armour
↳ Psalm 23
Victorian
, Exposure
BY WILFRED OWEN Pale flakes with fingering
faces— *
Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that We cringe in holes, back
knive us . . . stare, snow-dazed,
Wearied we keep awake because the night is silent . . . Deep into grassier ditche
Low drooping flares confuse our memory of the Littered with blossoms tr
salient . . . fusses.
Worried by silence, sentries whisper, curious, nervous, —Is it that we are dy
But nothing happens.
* Slowly our ghosts drag h
Watching, we hear the mad gusts tugging on the wire, glozed
Like twitching agonies of men among its brambles. With crusted dark-red jew
Northward, incessantly, the flickering gunnery rumbles, For hours the innocent m
Far off, like a dull rumour of some other war. Shutters and doors, all c
What are we doing here? closed,—
We turn back to our
The poignant misery of dawn begins to grow . . .
We only know war lasts, rain soaks, and clouds sag Since we believe not oth
stormy. * Now ever suns smile tru
Dawn massing in the east her melancholy army For God's invincible spri
Attacks once more in ranks on shivering ranks of grey, Therefore, not loath, we
But nothing happens. born,
For love of God see
Sudden successive flights of bullets streak the silence. *
Less deadly than the air that shudders black with snow, Tonight, this frost will fas
With sidelong flowing flakes that flock, pause, and Shrivelling many hands,
renew, The burying-party, picks
We watch them wandering up and down the wind's Pause over half-known f
nonchalance, But nothing happens
But nothing happens.
STRUCTURE
Owen believed I
men
The reality of war is that a
mattitudes to the war
war was futile
↳ In WWI With lots of trenc
and pointless
seen adrenaline and expectatio
Y
war was
↳
as brave and happen (heightened emoti
CONTEXT
the poem is
monourable
also an exposure
Each Stanza begins with
t
of truth to a
the British public -originally Followed by highly emotiv
*
Of the Marsh pursued a ↳ heightens the tension to
realities of war wilfred owen career in
in After dramatically heighte
died the Church
battle
E
t ends with an anti-climax
(NOV 4th ↳ Owen wants the reader
joined the British
1918) and understand their em
Army in 1915
