Exposure

• "But nothing happens "

  Repetition of throughout the poem gives the readers of sense of the boredom causing by waiting

  .Its also hints at the pointlessness of war
• "Our brains ache , in the merciless iced east winds that knive us "


  Personification and sibilance

  .The weather is personified to make it sound sound menacing and deadly

  .This also characterises the weather as the real enemy of the soliers

  .The sibilance here highlight the intensity of the pain and the brutality of the weather
• "dawn massing in the east her melancholy army" 


  . Personification dawn usually associated with ideas of light and hope is here hostile and brings even more suffering

  . Colour imagery "grey" conveys ideas of despair and boredom.

  . Military vocabulary

  " ranks" is a military term and is repeated, reminding the reader that the weather is the soldier's enemy
• "slowly our ghost drag home"

  . Metaphor

  . Suggests that war has sucked all the life out of the soldiers and further remind   readers that they are on the brink of death

  .
• "All their eyes are ice"

  . Metaphor

  . The extreme effects of the weather that have overcome the soldiers

  . The soldiers have lost their humanity and could suggest they are close to breaking point