Base Details
If I were fierce, and bald, and short of breath,I'd live with scarlet Majors at the Base,And speed glum heroes up the line to death.You'd see me with my puffy petulant face,Guzzling and gulping in the best hotel,Reading the Roll of Honour. "Poor young chap,"I'd say--"I used to know his father well;Yes, we've lost heavily in this last scrap."And when the war is done and youth stone dead,I'd toddle safely home and die--in bed.
Words in this poem
- glum n.
- Sullenness. Skelton. [See Gloom.]
- petulant a.
- Forward; pert; insolent; wanton. Burton. [L. petulans, -antis, prop., making slight attacks upon, from a lost dim. of petere to fall upon, to attack: cf. F. pétulant. See Petition.]
- honour n.
- Esteem due or paid to worth; high estimation; respect; consideration; reverence; veneration; manifestation of respect or reverence. [OE. honor, honour, onour, onur, OF. honor, onor, honur, onur, honour, onour, F. honneur, fr. L. honor, honos.]
- scrap n.
- Something scraped off; hence, a small piece; a bit; a fragment; a detached, incomplete portion. [OE. scrappe, fr. Icel. skrap trifle, cracking. See Scrape, v. t.]
- toddle v. i.
- To walk with short, tottering steps, as a child. [Akin to tottle, totter.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Base Details is in the public domain. This text is taken from Counter-Attack and Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #8930; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Siegfried Sassoon, Base Details, in Counter-Attack and Other Poems (1918), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #8930, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/sassoon-counter-attack/base-details.html, id L04698.
Form and metre
Base Details is 10 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABABCDCDEE. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%). 88% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables.
See other poems in iambic pentameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 ABABCDCDEE breathA · baseB · deathA · faceB · hotelC · chapD · wellC · scrapD · deadE · bedE
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| If I were fierce, and bald, and short of breath, | 10 | ·········· |
| I'd live with scarlet Majors at the Base, | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| And speed glum heroes up the line to death. | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| You'd see me with my puffy petulant face, | 10 | ·····/˘/˘· |
| Guzzling and gulping in the best hotel, | 10 | /˘·/˘···˘/ |
| Reading the Roll of Honour. "Poor young chap," | 10 | /˘···/˘··· |
| I'd say--"I used to know his father well; | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Yes, we've lost heavily in this last scrap." | 10 | ···/˘˘···· |
| And when the war is done and youth stone dead, | 10 | ·········· |
| I'd toddle safely home and die--in bed. | 10 | ·/˘/˘····· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.