When You See Millions Of The Mouthless Dead By Charles Hamilton Sorley
In the poem When You See Millions of the Mouthless Dead by Charles Hamilton Sorley, the theme conveyed is a non-religious and more pessimistic or negative take on the death of soldiers in World War II. It is communicated as a way to cope with death, not soliciting an illusion of the person. The structure of the poem is in the form of an Italian sonnet since the octet and sestet are in one whole stanza, meaning that the poem’s idea or message is consistent and does not diverge. Firstly, the poem starts off with reciting the title and the lines, “Across your dreams in pale battalions go,/ Say not soft things as other men have said,/ That you'll remember. For you need not so,” that is referencing the intended audience, who maybe the friends,