The poem begins with farmers plowing the land and uncovering the bones of soldiers from a past war. The bones are found in a field near Mametz Wood. During the battle that took place there, the soldiers were instructed to walk (not run) towards the woods and the machine guns waiting to plow them down. Using this imagery, the past is evoked in the present day of the poem.
The earth is personified in the present day as a guard that reaches back into itself to remember what happened at Mametz Wood. This process of reflection is described as a wound working a foreign body to the skin's surface.
What is uncovered is the mass grave of twenty soldiers buried with linked arms. The poet depicts their skeletons as paused in a disturbing dance, wearing boots that outlasted them. Their bones are situated in different positions, some with tilted skulls and others with open jaws. The final stanza leaves us with a simile that depicts song notes slipping into the present day from the soldiers' absent tongues.
