Speaker or Narrator, and Point of View
The speaker is not identified. The perspective is limited third-person: notably, the speaker cannot identify the person who is burying the bodies. The penultimate line (Line 19) briefly switches to plural first-person perspective, as the speaker states it's unclear whether the drowned sailors "fought with us." The word "us" aligns the speaker with the sailors that he observes, but does not fully clarify his identity.
Form and Meter
The poem is divided into five quatrains. There is no rigidly disciplined meter, although the final line uses iambic tetrameter. Similarly, there is no set rhyme structure, but lines 2 and 4 of each stanza generally contain direct rhymes (drips/lips) or slant rhymes (this/nakedness, men/begin).
Metaphors and Similes
Metaphor:
“Enlisted on the other front” is a metaphor for death.
Simile:
Humidity has turned the inscriptions on the crosses “[a]s blue as drowned men’s lips.”
Alliteration and Assonance
"The convoys of dead sailors come" (Line 2)
Repetition of the "c" sound
“wander in the waters far under," (Line 3)
Repetition of the "w" sound.
"Someone, it seems, has time for this," (Line 6)
Repetition of the "s" sound.
“bury them in burrows" (Line 7)
Repetition of the "b" sound.
“Written with such perplexity, with such bewildered pity," (Line 11)
Repetition of the "w" and "p" sounds.
"the wet season has washed their inscriptions" (Line 15)
Repetition of the "w" sound.
Dead seamen, gone in search of the same landfall" (Line 17)
Repetition of the "s" sound
Irony
The poem's horrific subject matter is ironic given the setting of the beach, a place usually associated with leisure time and happiness.
The sailors' unity together as a group is ironically contrasted with the fact that the speaker can't determine whether they are enemies or allies, and the loss of their individuality in death.
Genre
Anti-war poetry. Although not composed according to convention, some critics view it as an example of an elegy.
Setting
Coastal Egypt in proximity to the Gulf of Arabs.
Tone
Somber, mournful, and respectful, thus contributing to its classification by some as an elegy.
Protagonist and Antagonist
Protagonist: the “someone” who has time to bury the bodies. Antagonist: the inhumanity of war.
Major Conflict
The conflict at stake here is between the act of humanity on the part of “someone” and the inhumanity of war which surrounds, delays and threatens his actions on the beach. There is a tension between the desire to mourn these men and recognize their individuality, and the constant, dehumanizing violence of the ongoing war.
Climax
The poem reaches its climax with the revelation that it is unknown on which side of the engagement those being buried fought (Lines 18-20).
Foreshadowing
The fading of the writing done with a pencil foreshadows the way that these sailors and the event which claimed their lives will be lost to history and forgotten.
Understatement
The description of the sailors as arriving at the beach "softly and humbly" understates the reality and horror of the situation, that the sailors are now deceased.
Allusions
The dead sailors and setting alludes to the historical reality of the Battle of El Alamein in World War Two.
Metonymy and Synecdoche
The drowned men's lips are a metonymy for the dead sailors and the suffering inflicted by war.
Personification
“The words choke as they begin” attributes an impossible physical attribute to words that are written, not spoken (Line 12).
"The breath of the wet season" (Line 13).
The humidity is personified as a living being that breathes in and out, creating moisture.
"the ghostly pencil / Wavers and fades" (Lines 12-13).
The pencil is ascribed the human attribute of 'wavering,' or being uncertain.
"The sand joins them together," (Line 19).
The sand is personified as a leader who unifies the drowned men in their enlistment in death.
Hyperbole
N/A
Onomatopoeia
“Sob and clubbing” to convey the muted sounds of gunfire (Line 5).
