The speaker is a soldier trapped in the degrading chores of army life — endlessly cleaning brass and being ordered about by men he considers fools. He says that without his love for England, the humiliation would be unbearable; even washing a filthy brothel floor would be nobler than this existence. The tone is bitter and weary, but not entirely bleak. What keeps him going is the spirit of his fellow soldiers. Their laughter and resilience matter more than the petty authority of sergeant-majors, the guns, or even the threat of hell. Waiting for their company is like a night watchman waiting for sunrise. The poem creates a mood of angry endurance softened by quiet affection — resentment at being reduced to servitude, yet pride in the men who make that servitude survivable.
Sonnets 1917: Servitude — Summary
If it were not for England, who would bear This heavy servitude one moment more? To keep a brothel, sweep and wash the floor Of filthiest hovels were noble to compare With this brass-cleaning life. Now here, now there Harried in foolishness, scanned curiously o’er By fools made brazen by conceit, and store Of antique witticisms thin and bare. Only the love of comrades sweetens all, Whose laughing spirit will not be outdone. As night-watching men wait for the sun To hearten them, so wait I on such boys As neither brass nor Hell-fire may appal, Nor guns, nor sergeant-major’s bluster and noise.