Last year the fields were all glad and gay
With silver daisies and silver may;
There were kingcups gold by the river's edge
And primrose stars under every hedge.
This year the fields are trampled and brown,
The hedges are broken and beaten down,
And where the primroses used to grow
Are little black crosses set in a row.
And the flower of hopes, and the flowers of dreams,
The noble, fruitful, beautiful schemes,
The tree of life with its fruit and bud,
Are trampled down in the mud and the blood.
The changing seasons will bring again
The magic of Spring to our wood and plain;
Though the Spring be so green as never was seen
The crosses will still be black in the green.
The God of battles shall judge the foe
Who trampled our country and laid her low. . . .
God! hold our hands on the reckoning day,
Lest all we owe them we should repay
With silver daisies and silver may;
There were kingcups gold by the river's edge
And primrose stars under every hedge.
This year the fields are trampled and brown,
The hedges are broken and beaten down,
And where the primroses used to grow
Are little black crosses set in a row.
And the flower of hopes, and the flowers of dreams,
The noble, fruitful, beautiful schemes,
The tree of life with its fruit and bud,
Are trampled down in the mud and the blood.
The changing seasons will bring again
The magic of Spring to our wood and plain;
Though the Spring be so green as never was seen
The crosses will still be black in the green.
The God of battles shall judge the foe
Who trampled our country and laid her low. . . .
God! hold our hands on the reckoning day,
Lest all we owe them we should repay
Edith Nesbitt
Edith Nesbitt conveys the destruction of war through the contrast of imagery that is used in the the first and second stanza. In the first stanza, Nesbitt uses positive and bright imagery, using words such as 'glad' and 'gold' to portray the peacefulness that the men and women had before the war. However, the second stanza is contrasting as Nesbitt uses words such as 'beaten down' and 'trampled' to show the destruction that the war has caused.
ReplyDeletei agree, i think that the first stanza presents a pleaant image of a scene prior to the war. 'the fields were all glad and gay' This emphasises the serenity and happiness of this place. The other stanzas present a darker image of this scene during and after the war. It shows the sheer distruction of the war and the upset the people felt due to this. In the fourth stanza it creates the image of the scene back to its original set, but with the crosses piercing through, as a constant reminder of what occured. 'the crosses will still be black in the green'.
ReplyDeleteThe last stanza is almost a pleed to 'God' to repay the men that lost their lives. The repetition of god makes it feel as if the writer is deperate for things to be normal again.