On Passing The New Menin Gate

Who will remember, passing through this Gate,
the unheroic dead who fed the guns?
Who shall absolve the foulness of their fate,-
Those doomed, conscripted, unvictorious ones?

Crudely renewed, the Salient holds its own.
Paid are its dim defenders by this pomp;
Paid, with a pile of peace-complacent stone,
The armies who endured that sullen swamp.

Here was the world's worst wound. And here with pride
'Their name liveth for ever', the Gateway claims.
Was ever an immolation so belied
as these intolerably nameless names?
Well might the Dead who struggled in the slime
Rise and deride this sepulchre of crime.

The Menin Gate war memorial at Ypres was built and opened in 1927. It commemorates the British soldiers whose bodies were never found. On its huge panels are carved 54,896 names of men with no known grave who died in this area between 1914 and August 1917. The designer thought there would be plenty of room for all the names, but there was not: a further 34,984 names of missing soldiers (from August 1917 to the end of the war) are carved on panels at Tyne Cot cemetery not far away. The Menin Gate is an integral part of Ypres and the Menin Road, along which people and traffic pass daily, runs through it.
Every night of the year, at 8.00, the road is closed while 'The Last Post', the traditional bugle call marking the end of the day for soldiers in action, is played.

At the opening ceremony in 1927, these words were spoken: 'It was resolved that here at Ypres, where so many of the missing are known to have fallen, there should be erected a memorial worthy of them which should give expression to the nation's gratitude for their sacrifice and their sympathy with those who mourned them. A memorial has been erected which, in its simple grandeur, fulfils this object, and now it can be said of each one in whose honour we are assembled here today: "He is not missing; he is here!" '

The Menin Gate is one of the most-visited monuments on the increasingly well-trodden war memorial tourist trail. Many are drawn by that evening ceremony (which is maintained and carried out by the Fire Brigade). © by owner. provided at no charge for educational purposes

Analysis (ai): This poem reflects the harsh reality of war and the forgotten soldiers who perished in it. It questions the glorification of war and the neglect of those who fought and died. The poem's concise language and sharp tone convey the futility and tragedy of the conflict.

Unlike the author's other works, this poem focuses on the forgotten soldiers rather than the horrors of war. It echoes the disillusionment and bitterness felt by many veterans of the war. The poem also aligns with the period's modernist movement, characterized by its fragmented language and rejection of traditional forms.

The opening lines establish the setting as the Menin Gate, a memorial to British and Commonwealth soldiers who died in the Ypres Salient during World War I. The poem then raises questions about the remembrance of these soldiers and the meaning of their sacrifice. The crude construction of the Menin Gate symbolizes the government's attempt to commemorate the dead while obscuring the true nature of their sacrifice.

The poem's final lines express the dead soldiers' potential mockery of their memorial. They died anonymously and forgotten, their sacrifice reduced to a hollow gesture. The poem's bitter tone reflects the disillusionment felt by many veterans and the public after the war. (hide)

Like (0) 1 Amazing Great Lovely Like (0)

Older comments

Comments from the archive

Nam - I feel, though the rhyming is good, that this piece probably would have worked best if it didn't rhyme. But as stated it's good the way it is written as is.

It's a quaint depiction of a motion. It carries in that motion and doesn't shy away from it.

a good piece written by Sassoon.