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About

Genius Annotation

Wilfred Owen is a poet who can create a range of voices; from intellectual first-person narrator observation of death in the trenches (as in Exposure) to wry, sharply sarcastic mockery of ignorant men detached from the realities of war (as in Arms and the Boy) to colloquial utterances of ordinary soldiers, as in this poem.

The title is searingly ironic, taken from the proverb ‘He who laughs last laughs longest’. The mood is deeply cynical.

Structure
The poem comprises three five-line stanzas known as quintains. There is an irregular consonant rhyme-scheme of single syllable line endings, for example ‘Dad’ and ‘dead’, ‘mood and mud’, ‘died’ and ‘indeed’ etc. The effect is to create tension and unease. Lines are of irregular length and choppy, reflecting the emotional shock and fear suffered by the soldiers.

Lnaguage and Imagery
Each of the weapons is personified and given its own ‘personality’, but all of them mock the humans they kill. The surface flippancy is a veneer covering the terror of violent death.

Q&A

Find answers to frequently asked questions about the song and explore its deeper meaning

Credits
Release Date
January 1, 1918
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