"Blighters"
The House is crammed: tier beyond tier they grinAnd cackle at the Show, while prancing ranksOf harlots shrill the chorus, drunk with din;"We're sure the Kaiser loves the dear old Tanks!"
I'd like to see a Tank come down the stalls,Lurching to rag-time tunes, or "Home, sweet Home,"--And there'd be no more jokes in Music-hallsTo mock the riddled corpses round Bapaume.
Words in this poem
- grin n.
- A snare; a gin. [AS. grin.]
- cackle v. i.
- To make a sharp, broken noise or cry, as a hen or goose does. [OE. cakelen; cf. LG. kakeln, D. kakelen, G. gackeln, gackern; all of imitative origin. Cf. Gagle, Cake to cackle.]
- kaiser n.
- The ancient title of emperors of Germany assumed by King William of Prussia when crowned sovereign of the new German empire in 1871. [Gr., fr. L. Caesar. Cf. Kesar, and Czar.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
"Blighters" is in the public domain. This text is taken from The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon, Project Gutenberg ebook #45199; 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, "Blighters", in The War Poems (1919), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #45199, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/sassoon-war-poems/blighters.html, id L17253.
Form and metre
"Blighters" is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 95%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables. 38% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 ABAB grinA · ranksB · dinA · tanksB
- 2 A-A- stallsA · home · hallsA · bapaume
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 |
|---|---|---|
| The House is crammed: tier beyond tier they grin | 10 | ·········· |
| And cackle at the Show, while prancing ranks | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| Of harlots shrill the chorus, drunk with din; | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| "We're sure the Kaiser loves the dear old Tanks!" | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| I'd like to see a Tank come down the stalls, | 10 | ·········· |
| Lurching to rag-time tunes, or "Home, sweet Home,"-- | 10 | /˘········ |
| And there'd be no more jokes in Music-halls | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| To mock the riddled corpses round Bapaume. | 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.