“Spring Offensive” Summary

“Spring Offensive” Themes

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  War, Death, and Trauma

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• 

  The Myth vs. the Reality of War

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• 

  Nature's Serenity vs. Human Violence

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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Spring Offensive”

• Lines 1-4

  Halted against the shade of a last hill,
  They fed, and, lying easy, were at ease
  And, finding comfortable chests and knees
  Carelessly slept.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 5-9

  But many there stood still
  To face the stark, blank sky beyond the ridge,
  Knowing their feet had come to the end of the world.
  Marvelling they stood, and watched the long grass swirled
  By the May breeze, murmurous with wasp and midge,

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 10-13

  For though the summer oozed into their veins
  Like the injected drug for their bones' pains,
  Sharp on their souls hung the imminent line of grass,
  Fearfully flashed the sky's mysterious glass.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 14-19

  Hour after hour they ponder the warm field—
  And the far valley behind, where the buttercups
  Had blessed with gold their slow boots coming up,
  Where even the little brambles would not yield,
  But clutched and clung to them like sorrowing hands;
  They breathe like trees unstirred.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 20-23

  Till like a cold gust thrilled the little word
  At which each body and its soul begird
  And tighten them for battle. No alarms
  Of bugles, no high flags, no clamorous haste—

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 24-27

  Only a lift and flare of eyes that faced
  The sun, like a friend with whom their love is done.
  O larger shone that smile against the sun,—
  Mightier than his whose bounty these have spurned.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 28-33

  So, soon they topped the hill, and raced together
  Over an open stretch of herb and heather
  Exposed. And instantly the whole sky burned
  With fury against them; and soft sudden cups
  Opened in thousands for their blood; and the green slopes
  Chasmed and steepened sheer to infinite space.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 34-38

  Of them who running on that last high place
  Leapt to swift unseen bullets, or went up
  On the hot blast and fury of hell’s upsurge,
  Or plunged and fell away past this world’s verge,
  Some say God caught them even before they fell.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 39-44

  But what say such as from existence' brink
  Ventured but drave too swift to sink.
  The few who rushed in the body to enter hell,
  And there out-fiending all its fiends and flames
  With superhuman inhumanities,
  Long-famous glories, immemorial shames—

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 45-47

  And crawling slowly back, have by degrees
  Regained cool peaceful air in wonder—
  Why speak they not of comrades that went under?

  

  

  

  

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“Spring Offensive” Symbols

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  The Ridge/Hilltop/Line of grass

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• 

  Sun and Shade

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“Spring Offensive” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

• Alliteration

  

  

  

  

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• Assonance

  

  

  

  

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• Metaphor

  

  

  

  

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• Personification

  

  

  

  

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• Rhetorical Question

  

  

  

  

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“Spring Offensive” Vocabulary

Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

• Last hill
• Carelessly
• Stark
• Murmurous
• Midge
• The injected drug
• Imminent
• Brambles
• Sorrowing
• Thrilled
• Begird
• Clamorous
• Bounty
• Spurned
• Heather
• Chasmed and steepened
• Sheer
• Upsurge
• Verge
• Brink
• Drave
• Out-fiending
• Superhuman inhumanities
• Immemorial

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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Spring Offensive”

• Form

• Meter

• Rhyme Scheme

“Spring Offensive” Speaker

“Spring Offensive” Setting

Literary and Historical Context of “Spring Offensive”

More “Spring Offensive” Resources

• External Resources

  • The Poet's Life and Work — Read the Poetry Foundation's short biography of Wilfred Owen.

  • The Poem Aloud — Listen to a reading of "Spring Offensive."

  • Owen and WWI — A short video feature about the poet and the war.

  • Remembering Owen — A BBC film on Wilfred Owen's legacy.

  • Voices of WWI — Soldiers' firsthand accounts of the German Spring Offensive.

  • More about the "Spring Offensive" — Read about the German Spring Offensive of 1918.

• LitCharts on Other Poems by Wilfred Owen

  • 1914

  • Anthem for Doomed Youth

  • Disabled

  • Dulce et Decorum Est

  • Exposure

  • Futility

  • Mental Cases

  • Strange Meeting

  • The Next War