Poetry Circles (:

GRENADIER

The Queen she sent to look for me,
The sergeant he did say,
`Young man, a soldier will you be
For thirteen pence a day?'

For thirteen pence a day did I
Take off the things I wore,
And I have marched to where I lie,
And I shall march no more.

My mouth is dry, my shirt is wet,
My blood runs all away,
So now I shall not die in debt
For thirteen pence a day.

To-morrow after new young men
The sergeant he must see,
For things will all be over then
Between the Queen and me.

And I shall have to bate my price,
For in the grave, they say,
Is neither knowledge nor device
Nor thirteen pence a day.

A. E. Housman




QUESTIONS
1: This poem makes me feel sad for the soldiers because they are only getting a very small amount of money to go away and fight.I don't feel that 13 pence is enough money for a life.
2:It is about the deal between a solider and the queen. Each solider receives 13 pence a day to fight in the war.It is about how the soldiers basically received nothing in return for their lives and the queen just made an offer so it may have persuaded them to fight.
3:My mouth is dry, my shirt is wet. These words describe how he feels before he dies. His mouth is dry and his shirt is wet with blood.
4:I think the poet is trying to tell the reader that the queen didn't give then a lot of credit for their duties as solders and gave them very little.It may also be saying how the soldiers were just used by the queen to fight for their nation, if the young boy didn't have much oney to begin with maybe 13 pence was a good pay for him and he felt that he had to accept.
5:For thirteen pence a day did I
Take off the things I wore,
And I have marched to where I lie,
And I shall march no more.
I chose this stanza because even though the soldiers weren't getting paid a lot, he still felt that it was his duty to fight. The solider did and he ended up dying for his country.
6:Yes it does rhyme
7:I think the rhyme in this poem adds to the overall effect because the words get stuck in my head. I think rhyme is a good way to make the reader think about the poetry more.
8: no I have not
9:Yes I did, because I thought it was a clever way to get the message across to the reader about how the queen didn't really seem to care about the soliders and that she just gave them as little as she could.
10:The imagery created from the poem is a dead boy , in a blood covered shirt who is looking back on his life and wondering is those 13 pence a day were really worth it.


gren⋅a⋅dier –noun (in the British army) a member of the first regiment of household infantry (Grenadier Guards).