How we cite our quotes: (Line)
Quote #4
Do not weep, babe, for war is kind.
Because your father tumbles in the yellow trenches,
Raged at his breast, gulped and died, (12-14)
The slant rhyme on "kind" and "died" is interesting here. The whole kindness of war has something to do with death, which is another way of saying it's not kind at all. Zing. This is some pretty gnarly irony, Mr. Crane.
Quote #5
Point for them the virtue of slaughter,
Make plain to them the excellence of killing
And a field where a thousand corpses lie. (20-22)
The speaker's ideas here are incredibly dark and cruel. Killing and slaughter are not excellent or virtuous by any means. One could argue that according to our poet, people who think like this are partly to blame for the existence of war in the first place, and they're the ones who keep wars going.
Quote #6
Mother whose heart hung humble as a button
On the bright splendid shroud of your son, (23-24)
The simile of the mother's heart being as humble as a button is one of the saddest moments in the whole poem. It makes her seem oh so powerless in the face of the forces of war.