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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE WATCHERS by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN

Poet Analysis

First Line: I HEARD THE CHALLENGE 'WHO GOES THERE?'
Last Line: WHEN I AT LAST AM SEEN AND KNOWN.
Subject(s): WORLD WAR I; FIRST WORLD WAR;
I HEARD the challenge "Who goes there?"
Close-kept but mine through midnight air;
I answered and was recognised
And passed, and kindly thus advised:
"There's someone crawlin' through the grass
By the red ruin, or there was,
And them machine guns been a firin'
All the time the chaps was wirin',
So sir if you're goin' out
You'll keep your 'ead well down no doubt."

When will the stern fine "Who goes there?"
Meet me again in midnight air?
And the gruff sentry's kindness, when
Will kindness have such power again?
It seems, as now I wake and brood,
And know my hour's decrepitude,
That on some dewy parapet
The sentry's spirit gazes yet,
Who will not speak with altered tone
When I at last am seen and known.



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