Attack

Song Meaning

The lyrics paint a stark, immediate picture of an infantry charge at dawn. The scene is set with a menacing visual: a ridge emerging from smoke, scarred and shadowed under a "wild purple" sun. This ominous beauty is immediately contrasted with the brutal reality of war, as tanks "creep and topple forward to the wire" before the human wave even begins. The barrage roars, a deafening prelude to the chaos that is about to unfold. The central tension lies in the grim, almost mechanical progression of the attack against the raw, desperate humanity of the soldiers. They are "clumsily bowed" under their gear, a stark image of burden and vulnerability. As they "jostle and climb" towards the "bristling fire," their faces are "grey, muttering," masked with palpable fear. This is not a heroic charge, but a desperate, almost involuntary movement towards destruction, underscored by the chilling detail of time ticking "blank and busy on their wrists." The most striking craft element is the personification of hope as something struggling and defeated. Hope "flounders in mud" with "furtive eyes and grappling fists," a visceral image that captures its helplessness against the overwhelming force of the attack. This contrasts sharply with the earlier, more objective descriptions of the landscape and machinery, bringing the emotional core of the experience into sharp focus. The final, desperate plea, "O Jesus, make it stop!" serves as a raw, unadorned cry against the futility and horror. These lyrics achieve their power through a relentless focus on sensory detail and the crushing weight of inevitability. The juxtaposition of the natural world's grim beauty with the brutal mechanics of war, and the depiction of soldiers as burdened figures driven towards an unseen enemy, creates a profound sense of dread. The final, almost whispered plea elevates the poem from a mere description of battle to a desperate human outcry against suffering.