Edward Tennant
I DROPP’D here three weeks ago, yes — I know,
And it’s bitter cold at night, since the fight —
I could tell you if I chose — no one knows
Excep’ me and four or five, what ain’t alive.
I can see them all asleep, three men deep,
And they’re nowhere near a fire — but our wire
Has ’em fast as fast can be. Can’t you see
When the flare goes up ? Ssh ! boys ; what’s that noise ?
Do you know what these rats eat ? Body-meat !
After you’ve been down a week, an’ your cheek
Gets as pale as life, and night seems as white
As the day, only the rats and their brats
Seem more hungry when the day’s gone away —
An’ they look as big as bulls, an’ they pulls
Till you almost sort o’ shout — but the drought
What you hadn’t felt before makes you sore.
And at times you even think of a drink . . .
There’s a leg acrost my thighs — if my eyes
Weren’t too sore, I’d like to see who it be,
Wonder if I’d know the bloke if I woke ? —
Woke ? By damn, I’m not asleep — there’s a heap
Of us wond’ring why the hell we’re not well . . .
Leastways I am — since I came it’s the same
With the others — they don’t know what / do,
* This poem, written three months before the author’s death in battle,
was not included in his Worple Flit and other Poems. It appeared,
first, in the second edition of Wheels.
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Analysis (AI Assisted)
This poem feels like a fragmented monologue, dropped into the middle of a nightmare lived by someone stuck in the trenches of World War I. It’s raw, almost conversational, as though the speaker is muttering to themselves, trying to process a scene too horrific to fully comprehend. The disjointed rhythm and stark language pull you into the claustrophobic, surreal environment of trench warfare, where life and death blur, and time feels frozen.
The poem captures a world turned grotesque, where human remains mingle with barbed wire, and rats thrive on the bodies of the fallen. The speaker’s numb detachment clashes with the grotesque details they describe, like rats that “pull till you almost sort o’ shout.” It’s unsettling because there’s no distance between the speaker and the horror—they’re not reflecting or mourning but existing in it. The disjointed grammar and sudden shifts in thought mirror the disorientation of someone stuck in a trauma they can’t escape.
What makes the poem so striking is the way it blends the mundane with the macabre. The speaker mentions “a leg acrost my thighs” almost casually, as if the absurdity of that image has lost its impact. The mention of thirst, the dryness, and the fleeting thought of a drink humanize the speaker, grounding the horror in a simple, universal need. Yet even these human elements are overshadowed by the ever-present death, decay, and the rats, which seem almost symbolic of the dehumanization and predatory nature of war.
The poem’s lack of resolution or conclusion mirrors the speaker’s own limbo. There’s no arc, no catharsis—just a cycle of grim observations, fleeting thoughts, and unanswered questions. This structure makes the piece feel as endless as the war itself, a perpetual purgatory where even waking and sleeping become indistinguishable.
Ultimately, the poem doesn’t try to glorify or condemn war—it just shows it as it is: chaotic, relentless, and stripping away all sense of normalcy. It’s not about bravery or sacrifice but about survival in the most dehumanizing conditions imaginable. It leaves you with an uneasy sense of what it might have been like to endure those trenches, where the only escape was often death.