o gay' (L.7) The next few lines mirror the tone of such poems as 'The Ruin', an Old English poem, in which the poet (anonymous) looks on a ruined building, now frost-bitten and decrepit, imagining the sound and warmth that once rang through its walls. Return to poem 4.'glow-lamps' and 'girls glanced' (L.8 & L9) Both are linked effectively by the use of alliteration. Return to poem 5.'before he threw away his knees' (L.10) The implication that this was a needless loss (sacrifice) is reinforced by Ll.23-4 where the wounded soldier fails to remember why he joined up, pointing only to a distant sense of duty, and euphoria after the football match. Fussell notes that: 'Owen's favourite sensuous device is the formula 'his - ', with the blank usually filled with a part of the body.' (p. 292). Return to poem 6.'Now he will never feel again how slim/Girls' waists are' (L.11 & L.12) Showing not only the physical loss of his arm, but also the psychological scars as the soldier knows he will be shunned by women from now on. Return to poem 7.'younger than his youth' (L.15) The reversal is total. The implication is that his face is now older than his youth. Return to poem 8.'He's lost his colour very far from here' (L.17) C. Day Lewis cites this line as an example of one of the great memorable lines written by Owen. It is an example of 'deliberate, intense understatements – the brave man's only answer to a hell which no epic words could express...more poignant and more rich with poetic promise than anything else that has been done during this century.' HFP, P.17 Return to poem 9.'spurted from his thigh' (L.20) Clearly a parody of sexual ejaculation. Owen uses erotic language at this point but referring to blood instead of semen. The irony being that here we have the loss of life (the soldier loses his limbs, and his senses) as opposed to th...
