bayonet charge

• "suddenly he awoke and was running"


  opens in media res, mirroring the soldier's immediate plunge into terror and frenzy of war
• Whilst Hughes himself did not serve in the war, his father did, perhaps motivating his Hughes' arguably sympathetic portrayal of those vulnerable to brutality of conflict. Additionally, he idolised Owen for commemorating the true horrors of war.
• "King, honour, human dignity, et cetera / Dropped like luxuries"


  continuous enjambment - disruption and frenzy

  asyndetic listing - dismissive as belief in these ideals is self-indulgent and irrelevant and must be abandoned to survive.
• "yellow hare"


  symbolic of those violently sacrificed in war - reveals vulnerability of soldier embroiled in warfare and how the speaker acknowledges his inevitable fate
• “In what cold clockwork of the stars and the nations /Was he the hand pointing that second?”


  metaphor - soldiers commodified as machines that operate unemotionally and mechanically , Hughes questions blind patriotism
• "smacking the belly out of the air"


  brutal and aggressive imagery acts as a reminder of the senseless violence of war