Devices in 'My Dear Soldiers'

'My Dear Soldiers' is short, but almost every line does something with language. Five poetic devices:

1. Imagery: pictures of the soldiers' surroundings, so you see the hardship: "snowy days", "scorching sun's sweltering rays", "lonely expanses", "climbing the heights", "striding the valleys". You never see a soldier's face, only the places they stand in.

2. Simile: "Treading the lonely expanses as yogis." The word as makes it an open comparison: soldiers, like yogis, bear hardship alone, by choice, without complaint.

3. Metaphor: "Wind chimes of my land vibrate your feat." Wind chimes can't literally ring out an achievement; the poet means the land itself proclaims what the soldiers have done, without anyone announcing it. (No like or as, so it's a metaphor.)

4. Repetition: count the yous and wes. "You are great sons", "You still hold on", "You are there guarding", "your youth" against "we are all asleep", "we pray for you". Every you is awake and outside; every we is asleep and safe. That's the poem's whole point, made without arguing!

5. Alliteration: "Windy season or snowy days", "scorching sun's sweltering rays", "surveillance in seas and by securing". The repeated s ties the lines together. Read them aloud and hear the hiss through the harshest lines!

All five pull the same way: imagery shows the hardship, the simile makes it devotion, repetition keeps the contrast alive, and the metaphor lets the whole country say thank you.