Themes: war and the effect it has on people
Links to: Larkin's MCMXIV
title is a paradox/oxymoron in itself
"horses to bolt and flocks of meat-snatching birds to rise" - a cycle - vultures -> pick at the dead - violent imagery
First stanza - shows how we view war as heroic, a tribute to their country, "his war medals, their pretty coloured ribbons" - then the second stanza shows us what war is really like from a war veteran's perspective
"When they spoke it was the silence of gas" - sibilance - gas was a silent killer - violent/deadly
"when they sang it was shrapnel striking helmet" - sibilance - whatever they did something bad happened - violent imagery
"finally, soldiers' prayers and soldiers' screams" - "finally" - their death was inevitable/ bound to happen - build up to their deaths - contrast of two different deaths - religious and violent
"thrilled the cold angels to steal the muskets of the dead" - angels wouldn't usually be "thrilled" by death - "cold angels" - paradox/oxymoron - death - "steal" - crime - angels are seen as innocent and pure - still even in death they are trying to fight, to win
"to become stealthily visible" - paradox/oxymoron - stealing the dead's muskets makes them "stealthily visible" - careful but wants them to be seen?
"bold and bloodthirsty" - alliteration - animalistic qualities have arose in their death - lost morale - no longer civilised - violent imagery
"true facsimiles of men" - "facsimiles" -> exact copy - this is what they were like when they were alive but when they died and became angels this has awakened their "bloodthirsty" nature that was already within them - because they're now invisible they don't have to hide that side of themselves
Last stanza - he come back from war injured and now is trapped in his home - reliving what he saw and what he went through - seeing it repeatedly over and over again - war has left him weak and unhealthy - he remembers more about it as he keeps seeing it
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