‘When you see the millions of the

mouthless dead’

By Charles Sorley Page 167

When you see millions of the mouthless deadAcross your dreams in pale battalions go,Say not soft things as other men have said,That you’ll remember. For you need not so.Give them not praise. For, deaf, how should they knowIt is not curses heaped on each gashed head?Nor tears. Their blind eyes see not your tears flow.Nor honour. It is easy to be dead.Say only this, “They are dead.” Then add thereto,“yet many a better one has died before.”Then, scanning all the o’ercrowded mass, should youPerceive one face that you loved heretofore,It is a spook. None wears the face you knew.Great death has made all this for evermore..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Et9KkDIPebw

Charles Sorley • Charles Hamilton Sorley was born in Aberdeen in 1895. • In 1913 Sorley decided to spend a year in Germany before

taking up the offer of a place at University College, Cambridge.

• When war was declared in August, 1914, Sorley immediately came back to England and enlisted in the British Army.

• Sorley joined the Suffolk Regiment and after several months training, Lieutenant Sorley was sent to the Western Front.

• Sorley arrived in France in May 1915 and after three months was promoted to captain.

• Charles Hamilton Sorley was killed by a sniper at the Battle of Loos on 13th October, 1915. He was 20 years old.

• He left only 37 complete poems, including the one he wrote just before he was killed, When You See Millions of the Mouthless Dead.

• Sorley's posthumous book, Marlborough and Other Poems was a popular and critical success when it was published in 1916.

When you see millions of the mouthless deadAcross your dreams in pale battalions go,Say not soft things as other men have said,That you’ll remember. For you need not so.

Emphasis on the great number of those that have died. Draws attention straight away suggests the futility of war as so many were killed.

The use of ‘mouthless’ creates quite a distorted image which is very grotesque. It seems to almost dehumanise the soldiers as they no longer have the use of their mouths and speech so are they still considered human?

The use of ‘pale’ creates quite a ghost like image of the battlefield almost as if in the dream the reader is walking across the battlefield seeing the spirits of the dead soldiers. Haunting.

The last two lines suggest that there is no need to pity those that have died.

The use of ‘you’ and ‘your’ makes it much more personal to the reader as if Sorely is addressing their own dream.

Sympathy from those who did not fight such as from the government, commanders and those at the home front is not wanted.

Alliteration of the ‘m’ adds emphasis to the amount of soldiers that have died and create a powerful sound. Also when spoken it causes exaggerated movement of the mouth, contrasts to the soldiers who are now ‘mouthless’.

Give them not praise. For, deaf, how should they knowIt is not curses heaped on each gashed head?Nor tears. Their blind eyes see not your tears flow.Nor honour. It is easy to be dead.

Commanding. Should not praise them as it will not change the fact that they are dead for example awarding medals to those who died as hero's.

Violent imagery used by the word ‘gashed’ similar to slicing suggesting a horrific death. soldier’s wounds persist after death.

Quite a controversial idea. Suggests that life is much harder. Maybe it is now easier as they have escaped the horrors of the battlefield. Contrasts with the idea that wounds still stay with the soldiers once they have died.

A homophone? Deaf could also mean ‘death’ suggesting that death has taken away their senses again dehumanising the soldiers.

The use of ‘curses’ creates a Supernatural feel implying harm or punishment.No longer aware of their pain?

Their senses have been taken away from them as they can no longer hear what is said to them.

Say only this, “They are dead.” Then add thereto,“Yet many a better one has died before.”Then, scanning all the o’ercrowded mass, should youPerceive one face that you loved heretofore,It is a spook. None wears the face you knew.Great death has made all this for evermore.

To that or that place

Before now

Over crowded. ‘O’ercrowded mass’ suggests that the dead bodies have become one creating a shocking and horrific image. One body of human matter as they are no longer considered to be fully human due to the loss of senses and ‘none wears the face you knew.

Death has power all and the dead soldiers will be forever in its grasp. Death has changed the soldiers and they are never going to be the person that they once were.

Not one soldier is the same as they were before the war or death, they have become unrecognisable hence ‘o’ercrowded mass. Anyone that looks like the one you once knew is a ghost.

Better people have died than the dead in war

Emotionless, unsympathetic, kind words are useless to the dead.

Just doing their duty for their county many others have died before them

‘Scanning’ gives the idea of looking across a vast landscape- the battlefield- the millions that have died. Nothing stands out as they are a ‘mass’

• This poem was written as a response to Rupert Brooke’s ‘The soldier’ and provokes the reader not to think sympathetically of the dead. Sorley uses the opposite approach to Brooke by encouraging the reader not to believe in the idea of a ‘heroic’ death ‘under an English heaven’ Sorley emphasises the sheer number of losses and creates the idea that there is no glory in death the antithesis to ‘The soldier’.

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/1914-v-the-soldier

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Structure

• The poem is written in one stanza which could reflect the ‘o’ercrowded’ mass adding emphasis to the overwhelming number of those killed by the war and left on the battlefield to die. It also continues the idea that the soldiers have become de humanised, unrecognisable to the ones who loved them.

• Sorley uses caesura ‘give them not praise’, ‘nor tears’, ‘nor honour’ which creates a commanding tone to the poem as if he is telling the reader that there is no point in crying or praising the dead as they are not what they once knew and what difference will it make now they are dead.

• Sorley uses the Rhyme scheme ABABBABA, CDCDCD. This creates a marching rhythm which could represent the dead soldiers marching into the clutches of death. However it is quite a slow rhythm so it creates almost a plodding sound representing the deformity of the dead.

• Sorley uses the form of a sonnet as he uses 14 lines. This is quite ironic as the poem reflects the horrific death and afterlife of the soldier where as sonnets are normally used when expressing love.

Other poems Such, such is Death: no triumph: no defeat:Only an empty pail, a slate rubbed clean,A merciful putting away of what has been.

And this we know: Death is not Life, effete,Life crushed, the broken pail. We who have seenSo marvellous things know well the end not yet.

Victor and vanquished are a-one in death:Coward and brave: friend, foe. Ghosts do not say,"Come, what was your record when you drew breath?"But a big blot has hid each yesterdaySo poor, so manifestly incomplete.And your bright Promise, withered long and sped,Is touched, stirs, rises, opens and grows sweetAnd blossoms and is you, when you are dead.

To Germany:You are blind like us. Your hurt no man designed,And no man claimed the conquest of your land.But gropers both through fields of thought confinedWe stumble and we do not understand.You only saw your future bigly planned,And we, the tapering paths of our own mind,And in each others dearest ways we stand,And hiss and hate. And the blind fight the blind.

When it is peace, then we may view againWith new won eyes each other's truer form and wonder.Grown more loving kind and warmWe'll grasp firm hands and laugh at the old pain,When it is peace. But until peace, the storm,The darkness and the thunder and the rain.

Compare to ‘Strange Meeting’ and ‘Dulce

et Decorum est’