MINERS
Wilfred Owen
THERE was a whispering in my hearth,
A sigh of the coal,
Grown wistful of a former earth
It might recall.
I listened for a tale of leaves
And smothered ferns,
Frond-forests, and the low sly lives
Before the fawns.
My fire might show steam-phantoms simmer
From Time's old cauldron,
Before the birds made nests in summer,
Or men had children.
But the coals were murmuring of their mine,
And moans down there
Of boys that slept wry sleep, and men
Writhing for air.
I saw white bones in the cinder-shard,
Bones without number.
For many hearts with coal are charred,
And few remember.
I thought of all that worked dark pits
Of war, and died
Digging the rock where Death reputes
Peace lies indeed:
Comforted years will sit soft-chaired,
In rooms of amber,
The years will stretch their hands, well-cheered
By our life's ember;
The centuries will burn rich loads
With which we groaned,
Whose warmth shall lull their dreaming lids,
While songs are crooned;
But they will not dream of us poor lads
Lost in the ground.
SURFACE MEANING
The general perspective shows a fireplace where coals are burning. The coals seem murmuring within that fireplace. In the opening lines, the coals are put in the
hearth" or floor of the fireplace. It seems that the coals are nostalgically "whispering" and sighing. They may remember their original land and are grown wistfully.
In stanza 2, the fireplace expects to hear "a tale of leaves" from the coals because the leaves represent their origins. Since the ferns were burning under the ground and, through millions of years, they are kept there "smothering", this image also shows the origin of the coals. In this prehistoric era, where the coals originate from, the large-divided leaves of the forest try to be crafty and evasive escaping from the fauns. In Roman mythology, fauns are any of a group of rural deities represented as having the body of a man and the horns, ears, tail, and sometimes legs of a goat.
In stanzas 3 and 4, the fireplace says that its fire may burn like a steam akin to a group phantoms boiling amidst this fire. It seems that they are put in the "Cauldron" or boiling pot of time itself. This capitalized "Time" is older than any sort of existence. The emission some sort of moaning sound. But, afterwards, it realizes that these sounds come from the men twisted by pain and boys whose death is twisted.
In stanza 5, the fireplace reminds us that he has seen the white boons in a pile of broken and burnt woods or "cider-shard"; Numberless amount of bones "Charred" or blackened out of burning.
In stanza 6, there is a slight reference to the story of "the miners who dug tunnels under no man's land in which to detonate mines beneath the enemy trenches." While digging a tunnel under the trench some miners have been killed, probably by an unpredicted explosion, and it had been like the presence of "Death" itself. Owen has mixed this idea with a mining tragic accident called "Colliery Disaster" (the references quoted here are taken from Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume 2, Seventh Edition)
In stanza 7, the time that is coming is peaceful and "Comforted" sitting in a soft chair as if feeling relaxed. Such a room is made of a colorful resin which represents being ornamented in a luxurious fashion. The future time, or "the years" can stretch the hands, which suggests going beyond, while being very comforted and exhilarated, or "well-cheered", via the burning fragments or the "ember" of the dead men's' lives.
In the finale of the poem, the speaker says that the massive load of dead men will be burn for the centuries to come. It is like these people buried while still groaning are like a pile of coals. The burning load if dead bodies and the coals are going to be burnt in the fireplaces soothing and "lulling" the future generations' eyelids while they are dreaming. Of course, these people are not going to remember the poor young men, killed and buried.
ANALYSIS
The rhyme scheme is (a,b,a,b,c,d,c,d,etc) but the sound of the final vowels in the rhyming words is not similar; for example, "simmer" / "summer", "leaves" / "lives" etc. this form of poetry is akin to a Heroic Quatrain but, as mentioned in Abram's "Glossary of Literary Terms, Owen, among many other poets dating back to 17 century, has deliberately avoided following a perfect group of rhyming words. This type of rhyming is called "Partial Rhyming" or "Para Rhyming".
The speaker of the poem is, in most of the parts, a fireplace seeing the coals burning on its hearth. But, in some certain lines, like that of the final lines (but they will not dream of us poor lads, Left in the ground.), it seems that there is a shift in the speaker and someone sharing that tragic accidents replaces the fireplace and talks on behalf of the dead soldiers (miners).
One may ask for what particular reason has he supplied such pattern of rhyming. He is probably using this pattern to signify the imperfection, incompleteness of the present time which cannot become any better than this because of the tragic past. One should bear in mind that such a set of partial rhyming words impede us from feeling soothed and pleased with the musicality of the poem, rather the audience is exposed to a number of rhyming words which look rhymed and thus are expected to be musically soothing but are not.
LITERARY APPROACH
In a formalist reading of the poem, one can detect a polarity between the past and the future. The elements attributed to the past, mostly mentioned in the first 5 stanzas, represent being burnt, blackened, silently whispered, turned to the ashes, died under the dark pits etc. But, on the contrary, whatever is attributed to the future is pictured with an imagery of luminous and soothing set of objects, like the amber room, sitting soft- chaired, dreaming lids being lulled etc.