The_Falling_Leaves

The Falling Leaves World war one had just begun and nobody had ever experience anything like it before. I think that this poem describes the stillness and the silence, the deadly silence of a tragic time in the trenches. It implies that everything is paying respects to the deceased, like the whole world has stop to remember them (three minute silence). The entire poem is a metaphor for the loss of life, they are never referred to as soldiers however, the soldiers are described as nature. Nature is beautiful and this, in my mind, is clearly the underlying message – that the soldiers will always be beautiful. Nature is a never ending cycle, through the seasons leaves grow and fall throughout time, this will never change. And for as long as wars are being fought, the same will be happening to soldiers. The line “They fell like snowflakes wiping out the noon,” suggests that snowflakes layer the floor and eventually cover it completely. It is the same for the soldiers, as they fall one by one, more of the ground disappears, they fall one on top of each other just as snowflakes do. And as the snowflakes melt, effectively the soldiers do to, seeping into the ground like the snow, disappearing without a trace. Although there is other punctuation, in particular the semi-colon at the half way point, the poem is actually written in one complete sentence. This has the effect of presenting one complete idea without allowing the reader to split up the ideas, which would reduce the impact of the poem as a whole. The rhythmic structure of the poem is 1, 2, 1, 2: Six syllables followed by ten. This gives the poem a regularity, which makes me think of the predictable order of the cycle of life which the poem is describing. There is no rhyme at the end of each line but the poet does use alliteration. “When no wind whirled them whistling to the sky,” The alliteration emphasises how active these words really are, they generally describe movement. I think it refers to how the soldiers used to be alive and moving. But because there is a negative in front, it almost bluntly refers to how they no longer can. “But thickly, silently,” The commas play a very important part in this quote. It slows the reader down as they read the words, giving more emphasis and more time to absorb to deep meaning and purpose. These words become much more powerful structured like this, they become words that the reader will remember when they finish. The same principal applies to “They fell, like snowflakes...” The comma in this quote emphasises the true meaning of the word “fell”, It means it was not purposeful, and there was nothing they could do to prevent it from happening. The comma’s purpose in this line is to put more weight on “fell”. They did not just fall and get back up again, the fell to their death. The comma gives the reader a moment to acknowledge this.