Exposure

• "Our brains ache in the merciless iced east winds that knive us..."

  • irony - nature is attacking not enemy
  • assonance - repeated i's slows down rhythm
  • present tense - never ending
• "All their eyes are ice / but nothing happens"

  • metaphor - dead bodies are literally frozen
  • war has taken away families ability to empathise
  • homophone - eye/I identities have become ice and been taken away
  • but nothing happens - death from ruthless winter is worse than dying in battle so they'd rather have a battle
• "dawn massing in the east her melancholy army"

  • personification - more danger from the weather than from soldiers
  • pathetic fallacy - reflects emotions of men
  • nature is 'melancholy' so reluctant to attack but feels obliged to