Analysis of ' Clearing Station'
The opening of the poem describes the setting of the clearing station. The quotation 'Straw rustling everywhere, suggests that the clearing station uses a lot of straw e.g. to absorb blood, or sweat etc. It is like they are on a farm or they sleep on it and might get treated as animals.
The quotation 'Candle stumps stand there solemy' suggests that they are staring at something so they could be shocked or sadened. They could ve paying respects to the soldiers that have dies. They could be at some other soldiers funeral. They could be on the front line wating to enter no-mans land and this is why they are just standing there.
Also the quotation 'Nocturnal vault of the church' 'Nocturnal' is something that happens at night or something that comes out at night, 'Vault' is where you keep something, 'Church' is where you go to pray. The line itself suggests that men are in a dark, secuse room in a church, praying for help. It might set an irie mood or a dark atmosphere when they say nocturnal. The church is like a santury of protection, they know they will be safe there, to get away from the gunfire and screaming. To get some peace. The soldiers or medics pray to God for some help or a miracle but it will never come.
In the second stanza the words become more personal, like the quotation ' a stench of blood, pus, shit and sweat' suggests that the soldiers live in a dirty, unhygenic place where they do not get treated for a while an they are so badly hurt or shellshocked they do not know what is happeing. They are all freaked out of what is going on.
The authors use of words ' Bandages ooze away underneath torn uniforms emphsises how bad the conditions must be for the uniform to be torn and the wounds are gushing out with blood and pus. The condtions are obvisously bad beacuse of the state of their clothes are in, if you were not in a war your clothes would be fine but in war you wear helmets, some sort of armour but if...