Nobody in the opening lines of "What must be done" actually does anything. "A price must be paid. Sacrifices must be made." Paid by whom? Made by whom? The grammar hides the person involved, and that hiding is the poem's central idea. Official language about war and duty sounds clean and inevitable because it leaves out the human being who bears the cost. As the poem goes on, that human being pushes into view. Judging by the "battling" and the talk of a leader and "my people," the speaker is a soldier, and the voice we hear is tired, frightened and increasingly unsure.
The poem is built around a refrain that comes back changed. The first time, it breaks off: "In order to satisfy / In order to save." Both lines are left hanging, as if the speaker is reciting a slogan he can't quite finish. When the refrain returns, the gaps are filled: "In order to satisfy the leader / In order to save my people." The order matters. Satisfying the leader comes first, and saving comes second. The phrase "my people" is also the warmest in the poem, the only place where the speaker claims anything as his own. The second version also drops the full stops, so it reads less like a statement and more like something chanted or repeated until it stops being questioned. The rhyme of "paid" and "made" gives the lines a hard, chiming certainty, which makes the doubt around them sound louder.
The imagery in the second stanza shows a mind trying to cope. Dripping blood "reminds me of a clock ticking," so something horrible is translated into something ordinary and domestic, with the added suggestion that time is running out. The "yellow flag" reminds him of "a chrysanthemum swaying," and a symbol of conflict softens into a flower. Chrysanthemums are linked with mourning in some cultures, so the comparison may carry grief inside its gentleness. Both comparisons use the same phrase, "Reminds me of," and the repetition feels like a habit: the speaker keeps reaching for peaceful pictures because the real ones are too much.
After that, the poem moves from what he sees to what his body feels. The lines get shorter and breathless: "The pain is suffocating / It's hard to breathe." The tercicle ends on "buried underneath," and the sentence never says underneath what. It might be rubble, exhaustion or the weight of the cause itself. The next stanza opens with three lines beginning "I want": to sleep, to forget, to shield his ears. Then comes the flat reversal, "But I can't." The wish to protect his ears from "all the battling" is a small and believable detail, a man who wants quiet more than victory. "My hands can't move" and "All my energy has been used" show him emptied out, no longer able to act on the cause he serves.
The most jarring moment is the comparison of war to "racing on an obstacle track," which comes with a bouncy rhyme: "You can't stop and you can't slack." The sporty rhythm feels almost cheerful, and it clashes with what has come before. It reads like the speaker repeating the language of drills and encouragement, or like a forced joke. Straight after it comes the poem's most human line: "Did I do that? No I didn't." The question is left open, but it suggests guilt and the urge to deny it. Here the missing subject of the refrain returns as a personal question. If sacrifices are made, someone made them, and he is no longer sure it wasn't him.
The ending turns the refrain's logic inward. "How does it feel to be dead, I wonder? / Will I finally know the answer?" The word "finally" makes death sound like relief, and the tone is quiet curiosity, not terror. It also hints at who the price may be paid by. The poem never says he will die, but the question implies that the speaker may be one of the sacrifices the opening lines mention so abstractly.
The poem is significant because of how much it does with plain words and short lines. It names no country, battle or enemy, so the soldier's voice could belong to anyone. It doesn't glorify duty or simply condemn it. It lets a slogan and a worn-out person sit side by side and leaves the reader to feel the gap between them.