A soldier is shot as he leaves a house, stripped in the snow, but he still clutches a stolen samovar and refuses to let it go. The speaker wonders what comfortable life the man came from — afternoons at tea — and admits he might have done the same: run behind a log and sit down with the big Russian kettle. But the soldier is dead, and only the spring thaw will loosen the samovar from his hand. The speaker feels a strange, guilty sympathy, not horror at the theft but recognition of the soldier’s loneliness and desperate need for warmth or home. The mood is cold, still, and quietly devastating; the samovar becomes both a stolen comfort and a frozen emblem of the domestic life war has destroyed.
The Soldier and the Samovar — Summary
They shot him as he left the house And stripped him in the snow But still he held the samovar And would not let it go.
Who knows from what fine home he came With afternoons at tea? If I had been that lonely lad, They would have shot at me.
For I’d have run as desperately Behind some log to settle, And sit me down beside my theft, The big, old Russian kettle.
But dead he lies; the snow piles high And winter fills the land, And only spring will move the thing And take it from his hand.