a comparisson of two war poets

They are not serious, they feel as if they are going to a celebration. Most of the soldiers knew what was going to happen to them so they were quite unhappy.

The first stanza starts in a serious mood "Down the close darkening lanes they sang their way". This is because the poet is trying to convince the reader that war is the most terrible thing that ever happened.

Both of the poems are similar in being about soldiers going to war. This shows that they are afraid because everything is so quiet that it looks like a secret mission. An important difference is that "Joining the Colours" was written by a person who had no experience about war and "The Send Off" was written by Wilfred Owen who was a front line soldier and knew how bad it was from his own experience. The poet knows that hardly any will return and when they do, they will come back to silence, sadness and broken hopes. Even though there are some words which convey an image that war is bad, most of the style of writing is positive and even happy. The style of writing throughout the poem is sad and conveys an image that war is completely bad. "The Send Off" is a sadder poem because there was no-one to celebrate and nothing to celebrate for the soldiers and there were no relatives saying goodbye. When the soldiers are going off to war they are trying to be brave by singing but they are very afraid "so secretly, like wrong hushed-up they went". One reason why there was no celebration for the soldiers was because they were not local to the area. The soldiers are making many different noises "with tin whistles, mouth-organs". An other difference is that "Joining The Colours" was written at the beginning of the First World War and everyone was happy, there was a lot of celebration and most of the soldier's relatives were there watching them.