The Song Of Battle

Italian Sonnet

Can you hear them coming?
Coming from the woods so deep,
Coming from where ghosts never sleep.
Can you hear the drumming?
Can you hear them humming?
Tunes that haunt the sheep,
That drives them from their keep.
Can't you hear the wind's warning?

The ground continues to quake,
The trees shake and leaves fall,
And the river runs rotting red.
The hearts of men quiver and shake,
As they sound the rallying call,
Only later to collect their dead.

Reviews

[Taylor Williams]

bleak but honest look at how war has always been. I like how the first stanza builds up so much suspense and then the climax is skipped to show that the end is the same as always. you don't need to know how they fought because regardless they'll be fetching the corpses in the end. but very good job 8)

[WhiteWillow]

This was wonderful! What vivid imagery. And you don't just describe the scene; the reader is put in the middle of it, as if a participant in the actual battle. Well done.

[paradise]

wow very intense and a very deatailed poem Its really good and the title fits perfectly with the poem great job thi is reallyu great ink
:)

[Nameless]

oh and i like how the title is like telling the story of the poem itself. how every war has always been and will be the same in the sense of the system, destruction, etc, like the same song of battle.

[Nameless]

Exactly true. The feel this poem gives off is like WW1 or even earlier, but the message remains constant. The second stanza really illustrates the huge, huge effect war has, "only later to collect their dead". Love it.