'They' by Siegfried Sassoon

       The Bishop tells us: 'When the boys come back

       'They will not be the same; for they'll have fought

       'In a just cause: they lead the last attack

       'On Anti-Christ; their comrades' blood has bought

       'New right to breed an honourable race,

       'They have challenged Death and dared him face to face.'

       'We're none of us the same!' the boys reply.

       'For George lost both his legs; and Bill's stone blind;

       'Poor Jim's shot through the lungs and like to die;

       'And Bert's gone syphilitic: you'll not find

       'A chap who's served that hasn't found some change.

       ' And the Bishop said: 'The ways of God are strange!'

They who? Is the first question the reader poses himself. The indefinite pronoun they reveals that there is no need to personalize the poem. 

The poem is made up of two stanzas of six lines, that are two sestets.

A speaking voice reports what a Bishop (a religious institution) says, quoting his exact words. The alliteration of the sound b between boys and back, places the stress on the people who have survived and have come back home from the war. The noun boys suggests that soldiers were usually young men.

The Bishop’s idea about the soldiers who came back from war is reported in direct speech, as if the reader were listening his omelia. The Bishop tries to justify the change suffered from the soldiers (they will not be the same) asserting that it is honorable to fight for your motherland (for they’ll have fought in a just cause). The line recalls Rupert Brook’s poem The Soldier, for its sense of romantic patriotism.

The Bishop uses a metaphorical language, to speak about the enemy (Anti-Christ), and to celebrate the war as a way to become honorable (their comrades’ blood has bought new right to breed an honorable race). The verb breed that means to feed animals, is a textual clue of the use of irony. Sassoon exploits ironic language in order to criticize the position of the Church towards the war. The poet is criticizing the justification and the propaganda made by the Church. Apparently, Sassoon seems to be in line with Brooke’s The Soldier, on the contrary, he uses irony: it means he says something to mean exactly the opposite. Dying is not honorable! is actually saying the poet.

Three words start with a capital letter: Bishop, Anti-Christ, Death. They seem to be abstract, not touching anybody. But that is not the factual reality.

In order to criticize the rhetorical speech and the propaganda of the Bishop, the poem relies on the organizing principle of irony. The poet’s opinion becomes explicit in the second sestet, that in the Petrarchan had the function to provide a possible solution. None of us is the same after the war! says a second speaking voice, who is a soldier’s voice. The Bishop’s institutional point of view is now compared to a soldier’s point of view. Therefore the abstract they becomes somebody real, whose names are George, Bill, Jim, Bert. The soldier focuses on those parts of their bodies that have been wounded. The tone of the poem shifts from the abstract words of the Bishop in the first sestet to the concrete, the realistic, the tragic experiences of the soldiers in the second one.

What is the Bishop’s answer to the soldier’s accusation? The ways of God are strange. The poem ends

with a sharp critique to the propaganda of the Church hidden between the lines of ironic language.