Loss in Power and Conflict

A mother at the front door. Ghosts dragging home. Six hundred into the valley. Every one of these poems loses someone.

Loss in Power and Conflict: 10 key quotes. Learn this one first: “Nothing beside remains” (Shelley, Ozymandias).

The quotes

10 quotes, in the order they happen.

Nothing beside remains

Shelley · Ozymandias · power of humans · power of nature · loss

The statue is broken. The empire is gone. The sand is what lasts.

In every cry of every Man, In every Infant's cry of fear

Blake · London · power of humans · loss

Everyone is crying. Even babies are afraid. Blake hears it on every street.

Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred

Tennyson · The Charge of the Light Brigade · conflict · loss

Six hundred men ride into a valley of death. The line comes back again and again.

Slowly our ghosts drag home

Owen · Exposure · conflict · memory · loss

The men imagine going home. Only their ghosts can go.

For love of God seems dying

Owen · Exposure · conflict · loss

Owen loses faith out there. God's love seems to be dying too.

spasms of paper red

Weir · Poppies · conflict · loss · memory

Paper poppies on a blazer. Spasms sounds like pain. A mother pins one on her son.

I was brave, as I walked with you, to the front door

Weir · Poppies · loss · conflict

The front door is her front line. She has to be brave to let him go.

the world overflowing like a treasure chest

Weir · Poppies · loss · conflict

To the son, leaving is exciting. To the mother it is loss.

There once was a country

Rumens · The Emigrée · memory · identity · loss

The first words. Like a fairy tale. The country she remembers may not exist any more.

he must have wondered which had been the better way to die

Garland · Kamikaze · conflict · identity · loss

He turned back and lived. His family never spoke to him again. The last line asks which death was worse.