The two poems I am comparing are "Joining The Colours" by Katherine Tynan and "The Send Off" by Wilfred Owen. " Joining The Colours" is about a regiment of soldiers leaving Dublin in August 1914 to go to France to fight. This was at the beginning of the First World War and all the soldiers were happy because it was an opportunity for them to show their girlfriends and their families that they were brave. "The Send Off" is about a regiment of young soldiers who are departing later in the war. This poem was written a few years after "Joining The Colours". The mood of each occasion is different because "Joining The Colours" was written when the soldiers and their relative's thought that the war would be over by Christmas but instead it finished much later on and millions of soldiers got killed. The mood in "The Send Off" is totally different because the soldiers were already afraid. They knew how dangerous the war was because of what so many people had experienced since "Joining The Colours" was written in 1914. There was no celebration for them because most of the people knew what was going to happen. The stru

The poem "The Send Off" is much more serious, bitter and sad. All the soldiers who are going to war know that they are marching towards death. 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". This shows that they are afraid because everything is so quiet that it looks like a secret mission. The soldiers were wearing white wreaths around their necks. Their girl friends gave them flowers for being brave. However we get an opposite impression because people put wreaths on graves of the dead.

Both of the poems are similar in being about soldiers going to war. They were both written in The First World War. 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. 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. "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. Most of the soldiers knew what was going to happen to them so they were quite unhappy. Wilfred Owen and Katherine Tynan are trying to convey an image that war is bad. I think that war is like a swirling monster. Which traps and consume the unwary and leaves only dead people, which destroys hopes and leaves only despair. The poem that I prefer the most is "The Send Off" this is because Wilfred Owen doesn't hide the reality of war and he shows that war is dangerous and destructive.

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Approximate Word count = 1709
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)