For those who din listen to wad mr ahmad said abt "naming of parts"

The poem, we first note, is the reaction of an army recruit to what he hears and sees. The first three lines of each stanza, except those of the final stanza, present the instructor's lesson in the nomenclature of the Lee Enfield(an English rifle similar to the American Springfield). It is important to recognize that while the lesson moves from part to part, at no point does it progress from nomenclature to function:

Stanza one introduces the piecemeal approach of the instruction;

Stanza two names the upper and lower swivels, but without sling and piling swivel A piling swivel (called a stacking swivel in the United States, or Aufstellbügel in Germany) is a metal, C-shaped bracket, mounted on the nosecap toward the end of a rifle barrel, just behind the bayonet mount the trainee cannot be told how to carry or stack his rifle;

Stanza three takes up the proper procedure for releasing the safety-catch without explaining its purpose;

And stanza four expresses the same concern for aimless naming of the loading and firing mechanism.

The vocabulary of the lesson is limited and unimaginative, the statements are repetitious and halting, and the cumulative effect of the voice on recruit and reader is one of boredom. Because he has selected only those aspects of the lesson which would appear disconnected and meaningless, the poet makes the lesson appear to have no more significant objective than the naming of parts—some of which are unexplained—of an instrument for destroying life.

Now let us see what the trainee is doing as the lesson proceeds. Awkwardly holding his gun (the branches hold "silent, eloquent gestures, which in our case we have not got"), he goes through the motions demanded of him. But like that of many another reluctant pupil caught in the hour of spring, his attention is elsewhere. In general, it is focused on a cultivated area, "the neighboring gardens," and in particular on one species of bush, the Prunus japonica or flowering almond. The recruit's observations are developed by a second voice which begins after the caesura in the fourth line and flows through the fifth line of each stanza.

In every instance this second voice is triggered by the manual of arms lesson, but it is characterized by an emotive and sensuous diction which serves to create sharply defined images centering on the blossoms of the seed-bearing plant. In the first stanza the new voice, like a good student's, begins with the scientific (and romantic) name of the plant but immediately reveals its freshness and color; in succeeding stanzas this voice discovers the meaningful shape and stance of the branches (perhaps open-armed or gracefully beckoning), the delicately weightless and still quality of the expectant blossoms, and finally (in an implied comparison with the trainees) the warlike and awkward action of the early bees engaged in their purposeful task. The sixth line always picks up a phrase from the lesson to form an ironic comment which links and enlarges the sense of both voices.

In these stanzas the poet has made use of two voices, we find, to single out a series of images set in opposition between the mechanized and the natural worlds: pointless task against pregnant stillness; the cold, colorless rifle against the warm, colorful blossom; the awkward motions of the soldier against the eloquent gestures of the branches; the mechanical manipulations against the natural processes. The fifth stanza organizes echoes and images from the preceding stanzas into a final expanded perception for the reader.

2/7 poems analyzed

Shakespeare说:上帝是公平 掌握命运的人永远站在天平的两端 被命运掌握的人仅仅只明白上帝赐给他命运！