Conflict Poetry-Come On, Come Back

'Come On, Come Back'

Incident in a future war

Left by the ebbing tide of battle

When the tide goes out it leaves random objects stranded on the sand, like the girl.

On the field of Austerlitz

'Austerlitz' was a real battlefield in Napoleonic wars.

The girl soldier Vaudevue sits

'Girl solider' is a contradiction, no one expects young girls to be soldiers.

Her fingers tap the ground, she is alone

'Alone' repeated for emphasis.

At midnight in the moonlight she is sitting alone on a round flat stone.

Alliterations shows the eerie setting

Graded by the Memel Conference first

Imaginary conference, shows how serious war is still taken even years later.

Of all human exterminators

'Exterminators' sounds chilling and impersonal.

M.L.5.

Has left her just alive

Only her memory is dead for evermore.

She fears and cries, Ah me why am I here?

Disturbing description of her shock and confusion, shows how traumatised she is about what she is experiencing.

Sitting alone on a round flat stone on a hummock there.

Rising, staggering, over the ground she goes

'Rising, staggering' shows that she is struggling to do very basic tasks.

Over the seeming miles of rutted meadow

'Rutted meadow' shows that the ground is hard to walk on, showing a direct contrast to the sand at the end of the stanza.

To the margin of a lake

The sand beneath her feet

Is cold and damp and firm to the waves' beat.

The physical qualities of the sand is a contrast to Vaudevue's vagueness and struggle.

Quickly-as a child, an idiot, as one without memory-

She strips…