Response to Poem: 'O What is that Sound'

 

O What Is That Sound- Response to poem:

 

W H Auden is known for his story-like poetry, with a set of characters and often involving dialogue. ‘O What Is That Sound’ is no exception; he uses the characters of a wife and husband in a question and response pattern to come to the conclusion by the husband to ‘be leaving’ by the last stanza.

The poem can be seen as a development from an observing stage in Stanzas 1&2: ‘the soldiers are coming’ ‘they step lightly’, into a questioning and searching for ulterior motives of the ‘soldiers’ in stanzas 3&4: ‘perhaps a warning’ ‘why are they suddenly wheeling, wheeling?’. This turns into a denial and not wanting to accept the truth stage in the stanzas 5,6,7: ‘haven’t they stopped for the doctor’s care’, ‘is it the parson they want’ ‘it must be the farmer that lives so near’...and this repeats until stanzas 6&7; where he says: ‘I promised to love you, dear, but I must be leaving.’ ‘it’s the gate where they’re turning, turning’.

The use of the word ‘dear’ up until the last line in the penultimate stanza could be a reflection of how the wife may be the only thing in his way before he left. Throughout the poem, he is the one being asked the questions and giving reasonably knowledgeable responses; creating the impression that he knew all along what the soldiers wanted, but put it off until the last minute so as not to hurt the person he cared the most about until he had to.

I also think that the wife knows from the point she is on her knees: ‘why are you kneeling?’, maybe in a position of grief, praying or begging what will happen- or potentially before; but wants to keep her husband as long as she can, and keeps asking questions to delay his ‘leaving’ and give her the maximum amount of time with her she can get.

The poem runs in an ABAB quatrains rhyming pattern, adding to the simplicity and repetitiveness of the dialogue; and potentially with an underlying meaning of how simple it could have been to change the outcome of the poem. Another rhyme at the start of the line is in stanza 6; still in the ABA pattern- saying ‘O’ and ‘no’ at the beginning from wife to husband, which is almost a summary of the whole poem in two starting words.

The use of repetition is evident throughout the poem- each stanza starting with ‘O’, and every question from the wife’s last words is repeated- ‘were the vows you swore deceiving, deceiving?’ This could be like the gossip and repetition of what people are saying in every house, in literal terms, or purely as the husband tries to reminisce and remember every last word his wife said to him before he inevitably had to leave.