Poem for homework as instructed by Mrs. Hulbert...

Follower



My father worked with a horse plough,
His shoulders globed like a full sail strung
Between the shafts and the furrow.
The horses strained at his clicking tongue.

An expert. He would set the wing
And fit the bright-pointed sock.
The sod rolled over without breaking.
At the headrig, with a single pluck

Of reins, the sweating team turned round
And back into the land. His eye
Narrowed and angled at the ground,
Mapping the furrow exactly.

I stumbled in his hobnailed wake,
Fell sometimes on the polished sod;
Sometimes he rode me on his back
Dipping and rising to his plod.

I wanted to grow up and plough,
To close one eye, stiffen my arm.
All I ever did was follow
In his broad shadow around the farm.

I was a nuisance, tripping, falling,
Yapping always. But today
It is my father who keeps stumbling
Behind me, and will not go away.

Seamus Heaney

An essay on Owen's critique of those who lascked sympathy and understanding...

Introduction written by MR.D - paragraphs posted as comments by pairs from 12D

Owen’s critique of those who lacked sympathy and understanding of the plight of soldiers runs as a bitter motif through all the poems in the anthology. Whilst not as vitriolic and acerbic as Sassoon in his active, and public, critique of war profiteers and the ‘red faced’ generals, Owen develops compassion, and the ‘pity of war’ as a more subtle, and emotive attack of those who sat idle, morally or hidden behind the industry of the war effort.