Owen halts us with soldiers in the shade of a last hill. Some sleep, but many stand awake, staring at the sky beyond the ridge, knowing they’ve reached the edge of the world. They remember buttercups that gilded their boots and brambles that clutched like sorrowing hands. The spring air feels sweet and drugging, yet the line of grass ahead hangs over them like a threat. A small signal, not bugles, makes them tighten their bodies and flash a strange, farewell smile at the sun. Then they race into open ground, and the landscape erupts: the sky burns, the earth chasms, and men leap into invisible bullets or plunge past the world’s verge. The poem shifts to survivors who crawled back from hell, bearing “superhuman inhumanities.” They never speak of the dead. The mood builds from hushed, almost narcotic calm into screaming terror, and ends in a guilty, speechless quiet.
Spring Offensive — Summary
Halted against the shade of a last hill, They fed, and, lying easy, were at ease And, finding comfortable chests and knees Carelessly slept. But many there stood still To face the stark, blank sky beyond the ridge, Knowing their feet had come to the end of the world.
Marvelling they stood, and watched the long grass swirled By the May breeze, murmurous with wasp and midge, For though the summer oozed into their veins Like the injected drug for their bones' pains, Sharp on their souls hung the imminent line of grass, Fearfully flashed the sky's mysterious glass.
Hour after hour they ponder the warm field -- And the far valley behind, where the buttercups Had blessed with gold their slow boots coming up, Where even the little brambles would not yield, But clutched and clung to them like sorrowing hands; They breathe like trees unstirred.
Till like a cold gust thrilled the little word At which each body and its soul begird And tighten them for battle. No alarms Of bugles, no high flags, no clamorous haste -- Only a lift and flare of eyes that faced The sun, like a friend with whom their love is done. O larger shone that smile against the sun, -- Mightier than his whose bounty these have spurned.
So, soon they topped the hill, and raced together Over an open stretch of herb and heather Exposed. And instantly the whole sky burned With fury against them; and soft sudden cups Opened in thousands for their blood; and the green slopes Chasmed and steepened sheer to infinite space.
Of them who running on that last high place Leapt to swift unseen bullets, or went up On the hot blast and fury of hell's upsurge, Or plunged and fell away past this world's verge, Some say God caught them even before they fell.
But what say such as from existence' brink Ventured but drave too swift to sink. The few who rushed in the body to enter hell, And there out-fiending all its fiends and flames With superhuman inhumanities, Long-famous glories, immemorial shames -- And crawling slowly back, have by degrees Regained cool peaceful air in wonder -- Why speak they not of comrades that went under?