Poem
Abbreviated From The Conversation With Mr. T E H.
Poem - context Summary
Composed Amid World War I
Set at the front near St Eloi, the poem sketches a night scene of exhausted soldiers, dead animals and a fallen Belgian amid the mechanical presence of modern warfare. Pound contrasts visible chaos and distant, hidden artillery to convey dislocation and helpless routine. The repeated, corridor-like image of minds evokes numbness and the small, repetitive tasks that keep men going when nothing meaningful can be done.
Read Complete AnalysesOver the flat slope of St Eloi A wide wall of sandbags. Night, In the silence desultory men Pottering over small fires, cleaning their mess-tins: To and fro, from the lines, Men walk as on Piccadilly, Making paths in the dark, Through scattered dead horses, Over a dead Belgian’s body. The Germans have rockets. The English have no rockets, Behind the lines, cannon, hidden, lying back miles. Before the line, chaos. My mind is a corridor. The minds about me are corridors. Nothing suggests itself. There is nothing to do but keep on.
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