Blow Bugle Blow
-by Alfred Tennyson
The poem tells us about a war that its taking place far far away, in which
people are dying and suffering, so they blow bugles in a call for help to their
homeland but they don't get any response from the castle and the aristocracy
that lives in it.
The use of words like Bugle (brass wind instrument typically used on
military marches) gives us the idea of the war by suggesting sound, an specific
sound that we are most likely to relate to war times, that is the sound of the
trumpets of battle (bugles). And combining this with the word ''echoes'' helps
us create a more concrete and clear image of the poem's war in our minds,
connecting echoes with characteristics like ''distant'' (that is the distance
of the war) at the same time that its suggests the idea that these ''echoes''
are echoes for something, I mean they are not voices anymore, so the idea of
death is implicitly given. And further more, if at the end of each stanza
there is a repeated word ''dying'' combined with ''echoes'', one can easily
say: The echoes are the people's voices, and they are dying. As well as these
words relate us to a war time, the use of ''wild'' remarks the characteristics
that the human can acquire during a conflict like this in a comparison to
animals.
The tone of the poem its kind of bipolar, because it presents a calmer tone at
every stanza's beginning but when we reach the end of them, this sense of
calmness gets disturbed making allusion to what its actually happening on the
poem: At every ''call for help'' from the people, the tone changes according to
which place its being talked about, either far away from the war, in the
wealthy and peacefully lands or in the war itself where soldiers are fighting
and people are dying.
The title ''Blow bugle Blow'' makes connection to the poem by being part of the
refrain at the end of each stanza. And by only reading the title one can easily
tell that the poem is about war times and that's exactly about what it is, BUT
it makes a connection with some really important factor in the poem , which is
the use of sounds, either like in ''reading out loud'' types of sound, or words
that suggests us sound.
The theme of the poem its ''An ignored call for help'' in which the soldiers
and the people scream for any help from the upper class (which its assumed to
be their government) , but, as the theme suggests its being ignored. In this
poem, Tennyson expresses the feeling of the people on the battlefield (who are
not receiving any help) and make us adopt an critic point of view like someone
who's outside the conflict and cannot do anything to help.
The poem has both internal and final rhyme. The first one can be easily seen
and its used on every first and third verse of each stanza. On these verses,
the rhymes help on making the poem a little slower to suit the feeling and mood
that is portrayed every time the lyrical speaker talks about the peaceful place
away from the conflict, and to contract this place with the war zone. As well
it contributes on making the poem flow more easily by giving it some kind of
musicality. On the other side, the final rhyme contributes on changing
the sense of calmness to chaos by using soft word sound at the end of every
second and forth verse as well as using heavy sound words in the fifth and
sixth verse of every stanza.
The poem starts
with two verses that both contribute on giving majestic and marvelous
characteristics to the castle in which the high class lives (personification),
using a personification to refer to the splendor (in caps) falling on the
castle's walls which shows the glory and the prestigious construction that it
was supposed to protect the people. With an enjambment (which gives a feeling
of fluency and calm) with the next verse gives us an idea of ancientness of
this castle in order to make us think about this castle as an even more
powerful building, ''old in story''. In the next two verses the lyrical speaker
speaks about the landscape near the castle which is as peaceful and splendorous
as the castle itself. The feeling of peace is given by the use of the word
light because (in my opinon) when we hear an expression like this one one of
our first thoughts its about an late afternoon for example, with the sun hiding
etc. But this peace will be interrupted in the next two verses with the call of
the bugles from far away, the call of wild echoes flying that are slowly dying
when not heared. In this part, the use of alliteration in nessesary in terms of
giving the poem a little more speed to differ from the peaceful part of the
first verses. Meanwhile the people is dying, these other ''aristocratic'' guys live in peace and wealth ignoring all the fatalities from the war but still claim the glory of these battles for themselves, all the glory and honor goes to the powerful and rich high class people.
In the next
stanza, the lyrical speaker makes a call for everyone (including the reader) to
hark, to attentively hear these ''thin and clear'' words
that are traveling through the wind trying to reach their goal, trying to warn
the castle and get some help from them, or even an answer, it is said that these words are getting thinner because of the warriors dying and fewer in numbers. But ''O sweet and
far from cliff and scar'' its how exactly the people on the castle are living,
without worries about anything, far from the war and the scar (the scar
is a metaphor for all the wounds that the people are taking for them), the cliff its compared to the war because of the ''potential danger'' they share, and because of the probable abrupt and sudden deaths that can occur in places like these, living
in some sweet place that's even compared to an Elfland. But what does is it
mean to be this an Elfland? The Elfland, or land of the elves its described as
the most beautiful and peaceful place on the world where everybody lives happily
and without worries, a place of majestic creatures that are superior to normal humans. And this place is not answering the echoes and the calls
for help. Or is it? ''The purple glens replying'' its the light of hope that the warriors needed for their cause. The purple glens as well is an alussion to the Elfland that was mentioned before by giving a sense of majesty to all what belongs to the far away castle. Even though this response is going to rise the moral of the soldiers, they are falling on their own trap, the sound of the glens its only giving them some fake hope on their task, so its even worse for them to hear them (but sadly they don´t know). The poem continues with two fast and strong verses in which the author identifies himself with the people in the war by using the word ''us'' to refer to him and the population. The lyrical speaker now speaks to someone who's not known (it is assumed to be God or any divine entity) asking him to allow their calls for help to be heard in the capital , but this desire is not granted , so it continues to the next verse with the refrain calling once more to the city to please hear the echoes, because they are dying… dying dying dying.
In the last Stanza, the lyrical speaker continues speaking
to the divine entity and telling him, saying that because of this war ( and it
is infered that because of the people of the castle) his people are dying
under his beautiful and rich sky , which should not be messed or shadowed
because of a calamity of men, like this. He talks about all the consequences that
brought the war with , especially in terms of the loss of innocent lives, and
that now their dead bodies are stacked in the rivers , hills and across the
landscape. In the next
two verses, the lyrical speaker stops talking to his ''God'' to begin a monologue about what would be the
consequences of the war, specifically for the people that in their time of need
did not help . The voices of those killed in combat would survive joining each
other, between souls and souls they would grow together forever and ever
( to use the word ever twice as an alliteration emphasizes the use and importance of time), and it
follows that these words are not staying on the landscape only for attachment
to their homeland but with a more important reason , to remind THEM of what
they have done.The poem then ends with the same two verses that the first stanza ended with, again making allusion to the sounds of war, etc, But this time the tone its a little bit different. As the poem went on, the lyrical speaker told us about the consequences that their aristocracy shall suffer at the end of the war, but with these two last verses we can tell that everything he already talked about has not occurred yet, so its a warning to now hear the echoes and answer, because they are dying dying dying...
