“1914 II. Safety” by Rupert Brooke is the generalized World War I soldier’s contemplation on death. The tone of the poem progresses from a joyful experience to an accepting expectation of death and the safety found therein. This tone of hope and optimistic acceptance veers from the expected genre of the “war poem” and draws the reader in because of this discrepancy.
It follows a Shakesperian rhyme scheme (ababcdcdefefgg) with a similar structure divided into three quatrains with a concluding couplet. The first quatrain has a tone of assured safety, the second quatrain has a tone of realistic experience, and the final quatrain has a tone of confident victory reinforced by the author’s diction and selection of detail. The slight tonal divisions between the three quatrains serves to pull the reader along- keeping them interested and invested while promoting the common theme of man’s power, even over death. The major shift (volta) comes between the final quatrain and the couplet where the author announces with absolute certainty the soldiers’ safety “though all safety’s lost,” where there is none, and “where men fall.”
The structure reinforces the soldiers’ confidence- the continued assurance in the first three stanzas and the crescendo of confidence in the final couplet illuminates the self-possession and faithful conviction that “war knows no power” when there is such peace and harmony just beyond it, that “we have gained a peace unshaken by pain for ever” in death.
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