The Sentry

Wilfred Owen was sent to a hospital during the war in 1917,and it was there where he was diagnosed with shell shock. While in the hospital he wrote the poems he is most known for like "The Sentry". The poem tells the story of Owen and his men in a German trench ordered to hold their ground. They were under constant machine gun fire and shelling from the Germans. They were there for fifty hours, it was there where he saw one of his men be blinded by shrapnel from the German shelling.

We'd found an old Boche dug-out, and he knew,
And gave us hell, for shell on frantic shell
Hammered on top, but never quite burst through.
Rain, guttering down in waterfalls of slime
Kept slush waist high, that rising hour by hour,
Choked up the steps too thick with clay to climb.
What murk of air remained stank old, and sour
With fumes of whizz-bangs, and the smell of men
Who'd lived there years, and left their curse in the den,
If not their corpses. . . .

There we herded from the blast
Of whizz-bangs, but one found our door at last.
Buffeting eyes and breath, snuffing the candles.
And thud! flump! thud! down the steep steps came thumping
And splashing in the flood, deluging muck --
The sentry's body; then his rifle, handles
Of old Boche bombs, and mud in ruck on ruck.
We dredged him up, for killed, until he whined
"O sir, my eyes -- I'm blind -- I'm blind, I'm blind!"
Coaxing, I held a flame against his lids
And said if he could see the least blurred light
He was not blind; in time he'd get all right.
"I can't," he sobbed. Eyeballs, huge-bulged like squids
Watch my dreams still; but I forgot him there
In posting next for duty, and sending a scout
To beg a stretcher somewhere, and floundering about
To other posts under the shrieking air.

Those other wretches, how they bled and spewed,
And one who would have drowned himself for good, --
I try not to remember these things now.
Let dread hark back for one word only: how
Half-listening to that sentry's moans and jumps,
And the wild chattering of his broken teeth,
Renewed most horribly whenever crumps
Pummelled the roof and slogged the air beneath --
Through the dense din, I say, we heard him shout
"I see your lights!" But ours had long died out.

In the first stanza Owen describes the situation he is in. He starts by saying "We'd found an old Boche dug-out, and he knew/and gave us hell, for shell on frantic shell/Hammered on top, but never quite burst through" (1-3). The word Boche was a term used by the British during the war referring to the Germans. Owen continues describing how the German shells could not quite break through. Towards the end Owen describe some of the smells in the trench including some of the dead bodies Owen describes as "the smell of men/Who'd lived there years, and left their curse in the den,/If not their corpses" (8-10).

In the second stanza is where Owen goes into detail about the events that inspired the poem. Owen starts the second stanza with "There we herded from the blast/Of whizz-bangs, but one found our door at last" (11-12). This is where Owen references the German shelling finally hitting somewhere near him and his men. A few lines later Owen finally talks about the sentry saying "The sentry's body; then his rifle, handles/Of old Boche bombs, and mud in ruck on ruck./We dredged him up, for killed, until he whined/O sir, my eyes — I'm blind — I'm blind, I'm blind!"(17-20). After the explosion from the German shell Owen thought the sentry was killed but after checking on him he found out he was just blinded. He was hopeful the sentry could see asking him but the sentry could not see the flame Owen was holding. Towards the end of the stanza Owen talks about what happened after the shelling stopped. In reference to the sentry he says "Watch my dreams still; but I forgot him there" (25). No one can forget a wounded man in a trench. Owen means that in his reflection of the situation he forgot the man there. Implying he was either left there to die, or was killed shortly after going blind.

In the final stanza is just Owen reflecting on the whole situation. He says "I try not to remember these things now./Let dread hark back for one word only: how/Half-listening to that sentry's moans and jumps,/And the wild chattering of his broken teeth,/Renewed most horribly whenever crumps
Pummelled the roof and slogged the air beneath" (31-35). Obviously Owen doesn't want to remember such an awful experience. He says he half-listened to the sentry's moans, Owen tried to block it out as he was just trying to survive. He ends the poem with "Through the dense din, I say, we heard him shout/"I see your lights!" But ours had long died out." (37-38) When the sentry says "I see your lights!" I believe the light symbolizes hope. He had hope that he would survive the situation in the trench. But when Owen writes "But ours had long died out" it means that he and his men have all lost hope.