Mitchell’s “He Went for a Soldier” is a Violent Nursery Rhyme

 

Ruth Comfort Mitchell

He Went for a Soldier by Ruth Comfort Mitchell

He marched away with a blithe young score of him

With the first volunteers,

Clear-eyed and clean and sound to the core of him,

Blushing under the cheers.

They were fine, new flags that swung a-flying there,

Oh, the pretty girls he glimpsed a-crying there,

Pelting him with pinks and with roses

Billy, the Soldier Boy!

Not very clear in the kind young heart of him

What the fuss was about,

But the flowers and the flags seemed part of him --

The music drowned his doubt.

It's a fine, brave sight they were a-coming there

To the gay, bold tune they kept a-drumming there,

While the boasting fifes shrilled jauntily --

Billy, the Soldier Boy!

Soon he is one with the blinding smoke of it --

Volley and curse and groan:

Then he has done with the knightly joke of it --

It's rending flesh and bone.

There are pain-crazed animals a-shrieking there

And a warm blood stench that is a-reeking there;

He fights like a rat in a corner --

Billy, the Soldier Boy!

There he lies now, like a ghoulish score of him,

Left on the field for dead:

The ground all around is smeared with the gore of him

Even the leaves are red.

The Thing that was Billy lies a-dying there,

Writhing and a-twisting and a-crying there;

A sickening sun grins down on him --

Billy, the Soldier Boy!

Still not quite clear in the poor, wrung heart of him

What the fuss was about,

See where he lies -- or a ghastly part of him --

While life is oozing out:

There are loathsome things he sees a-crawling there;

There are hoarse-voiced crows he hears a-calling there,

Eager for the foul feast spread for them --

Billy, the Soldier Boy!

How much longer, O Lord, shall we bear it all?

How many more red years?

Story it and glory it and share it all,

In seas of blood and tears?

They are braggart attitudes we've worn so long;

They are tinsel platitudes we've sworn so long --

We who have turned the Devil's Grindstone,

Borne with the hell called War!

                Ruth Comfort Mitchell’s poem sounds like a nursery rhyme. I understand that poem where a soldier boy writhes on the ground, dying for nothing in a field soaked with his blood, is not a typical nursery rhyme. It’s not exactly something I would read to children – unless I wanted to scar them for life. But Mitchells’ rhymes and repetition within her poem cause the poem to feel like a story for children. Mitchell repeats the words “of him” at the end of multiple lines throughout the poem. Mitchell also uses repetition such as “a-flying there,” with the slight variation “a-crying there” in the next line.

The nursery rhyme “Three Blind Mice” has the repetition “Three blind mice / three blind mice / see how they run / see how they run.” The use of the title “Billy, the soldier boy” in Mitchell’s poem brought to mind the classic nursery rhyme “Three Blind Mice.” The repetition in Mitchell’s poem also seemed to carry the same childlike cadence as a nursery rhyme. (I also feel the need to mention that “Three Blind Mice” has a lot more violence in it than I recalled. It describes the farmer’s wife cutting off the mice’s’ tails with a carving knife – Maybe nursery rhymes share more of the violence in Mitchell's poem than I originally thought). I think that the purpose of this poem is to disturb the reader with its nursery rhyme-esque aspects while depicting the gruesome death of a soldier who is a child himself.

The nursery rhyme "Three Blind Mice"

                Mitchell does not hesitate in her use of violent images that cause the reader to feel the despair that she does over this Soldier Boy’s death. In the poem, when describing “Billy, the Soldier Boy,” in war, Mitchell uses imagery such as “blinding smoke,” “flesh and bone,” and “pain-crazed animals.” The images Mitchell provides the reader are sickening, especially when paired with the previous stanzas that describe Billy as a boy with a “kind young heart” who didn’t understand “what the fuss was about.”

                Ruth Comfort Mitchell was born in California in 1882 and had her first poem published at the age of 14. Mitchell’s disapproval of the war is clear through her attempts to disturb her readers with the brutal reality of war in her poem “He Went for a Soldier.” The main purpose of Mitchell’s poem seems to be to disturb readers into recognizing the absurdity of sending an innocent and unsuspecting young boy into the horrors of war. The boy’s obliviousness to the scene add to the heartbreak the reader feels at the boy’s violent death. There is no peace or honor in the manner of Billy’s death. He dies alone, in pain, lying in a field that is soaked in his own blood.

                Mitchell is clearly questioning war, and condemning the bloodshed of battle for its purposelessness. While Mitchell seems to be talking to her readers throughout the rest of the poem, asking them to “see where [Billy] lies – or a ghastly part of him – / While life is oozing out,” in the final stanza, Mitchell’s audience shifts. In the final stanza, Mitchell begins pleading with God, asking him “How much longer, O Lord, shall we bear it all?” Though Mitchell directly addresses God in the final stanza, she is still shaming those who have created the “hell called war,” for their “braggart attitudes” and “tinsel platitudes.”

                Mitchell creates a specific boy she calls Billy, to show the inherent wrongness of a boy who is blushing at the cheers as he marches off to battle one minute, and dying gruesomely in a pointless war the next. Through her utilization of violent imagery and rhymes that evoke the feel of a nursery rhyme, Mitchell achieves her purpose and chills the reader with the realization that innocent children are sent to their deaths for nothing.

For more information on Ruth Comfort Mitchell:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Comfort_Mitchell_Young