Muir The Horses

The Horses
Choose a poem that has a powerful message: show how the poet conveys this message through his or her poetic techniques The poem, 'The Horses' by Edwin Muir is a story giving us an image of the future after a nuclear war. It describes the experience of survivors of an nuclear war and extremely hard conditions in which they need to face during the nuclear war.
This poem is divided into two sections, the first section is a picture of the world after the nuclear war and the second section describes the coming of the 'strange horses' and the return of the nature. This essay will show how the poet conveys the message through his or her poetic techniques. At the beginning of the poem the poet takes us back to the past to tell
us what happened during 7 days of nuclear war. “Barely a twelvemonth after
The seven days war that put the world to sleep” at this quotation the poet describes an nuclear war as a "seven days war", which gives us an idea of the time.
This could be compared to the God’s seven-day world creation meaning the world was created in seven days time and in the same length of time it was destructed. he also uses an metaphor like “ world to sleep” which gives us an idea of rush destruction which was going on and helpless people who after such drama they give up and loose the battle. World becomes an empty, silent place. As we go through, the poet tells us of ravages of nuclear war that everything everywhere disintegrates. ‘The radios failed; we turned the knobs; no answer’ The poet by using these words wants to show us the sign of the beginning of the war. The conditions were difficult. People struggle to survive, the technology fails. The poet is showing us how dependent the world is on technology-when something breaks whole world collapses. However the poet also contrasts it with the power of nature as it says: ‘Late in the evening the strange horses came’. “That old bad world that swallowed its children quick
At one great gulp. We would not have it
again” At this point the poet tells us that the technology have bad sides that if people would not of developed the technology some things would of been totally different.
Also the poet is trying to gives us an idea that technology brings nothing good. That the things like nuclear bombs and guns do not helps us to live better. He is telling us that this kind of world has ‘swallowed up’ (meaning killed) many of people, so it means that technology can have tragic effect on people and people’s life

As we go deeply in to the story the poet begin to move to the second section of the poem ‘We leave them where they are and let them rust:
'They'll molder away and be like other loam.' Here the poet uses the Repetition to help us understand the situation and make the message clear and memorable to us. The message is that people do not care about their own achievements. They do not develop or nurture all the goodness which exist and which was given to us for survival but we let it die. The poet wants us to realize that it is us who make the world.

I thought the poem is well-written and very descriptive. Technology takes away some part our life, takes away the simplest way of living. More joy and less fighting can be found in a simple world, more peace and calm. Although when everyone takes the time to enjoy the company of one another, the world becomes a better place to live in, and I believe Mr. Muir thought that as well, and he wanted to convey his thought through his poem.