Vergissmeinnicht

“Vergissmeinnicht” (translated “forget me not”) by Keith Douglas is a realistic poem outlining a soldier’s firsthand account of his return to the site of a fierce battle. Upon his arrival, “three weeks gone” (1) since the battle, he finds the deceased German adversary, simply known as “the soldier” (4), who had fired at his tank just before his demise. The poem stirs the emotions of the reader, utilizing specific descriptions of the scene and bringing the feelings of loss and despair felt by the woman, Steffi, who has lost her significant other into the mix. Through a varying rhyme scheme, stable yet altering structure, and vivid imagery, Douglas describes the conditions and brutality of war and how each soldier will be remembered by both lover and killer alike.
Throughout the poem, the rhyme scheme is constantly changing from stanza to stanza, each involving end rhyme. In stanza one, Douglas rhymes the words “gone” and “sun” in lines one and four, and the words “ground” and “found” in lines two and three, thus giving the stanza an abba rhyme scheme. This differs with the following stanza which contains near, end rhymes of the word “gun” (5) in each of its lines. Moreover, each additional stanza is, at the least, a slight variance from the other stanzas. At first read, this makes the poem difficult to read. The first stanza causes the reader to anticipate the beginning rhyme scheme to stay somewhat similar as the poem progresses, so an alteration in the scheme is unexpected and causes the reader to misread the poem. The reason for these differences is not apparent until examining the poem’s content and its possible correlations to the rhyme scheme. Like the rhyme scheme, war is an unstable environment. The conditions are constantly changing and these changes, like this poem’s rhyme scheme, are unanticipated. Additionally, the reader, like many soldiers entering a theatre for the first time, starts off without knowing what to expect from the experience ahead of them; the differing rhyme schemes in the first two stanzas are not predicted. However, as the poem progresses, the reader becomes more and more prepared for these variances and prepares for the unexpected, just as the soldier knows what to expect.
Not only does Douglas use a varying rhyme scheme to parallel the conditions of war, he uses a stable syllable count per line as well. The number of syllables per line remains relatively constant at seven or eight syllables per line, with two separate lines containing seven and eleven syllables respectively. But what does this have to do with the meaning of the poem as a whole and its content? War, though dangerous and chaotic, is still somewhat organized, especially in the time period on which this poem focuses. Both sides have rankings, various chains of command, and rules and regulations surrounding conduct and engagement between opposing parties. Just like war, this poem has a combination of both aspects. It has the sporadic, chaotic, constantly changing aspect of war in terms of its rhyme scheme and uses the number of syllables per line to encompass the structured aspect of combat.
In addition to utilizing an erratic rhyme scheme and relatively constant syllable count, Douglas employs sentence structure to show not only the conditions of war, but the mindset of the soldier as well. Various sentences in “Vergissmeinnicht” are run-ons and incomplete. Whole stanzas are dedicated to single, run-on sentences, and the first stanza itself is a run on sentence (1-4). Later in the poem, “The frowning barrel of his gun overshadowing” (5-6), a fragment, is used to further detail what the soldier views. This makes the work just like the thoughts of the soldier in the described environment. More specifically, “Look,” in the beginning of the third stanza shows the soldiers surprise and interest at seeing the picture, making the fragment a perfect tool to use (11). The poem then continues through the soldier’s thoughts, utilizing differing sentence structure and ending with thoughts on the hurt done to the woman, Steffi. This end to the poem, which started simply with the arrival at a battle site, further emphasizes the range of thoughts one would have in a similar situation. It is clear that thoughts are not made in complete, perfect sentences. Adding in the toll of war and seeing an enemy combatant rotting and “sprawling in the sun” (4) certainly would cause a stream of thoughts to rush through one’s mind. Douglas undoubtedly portrays this variance in sentence structures masterfully in the entirety of the poem.
Douglas also masterfully uses vivid imagery as a means to detail the conditions and brutality of war. Each stanza has some sort of vivid imagery that emphasizes Douglas’s point. In the first stanza, Douglas describes the land as “the nightmare ground” (2), enforcing the violent actions and carnage which must have occurred in that area. He then shifts his focus to the deceased soldier “sprawling in the sun” (4). This is the first implication that the soldier is dead and shows the reader the impact of what happened three weeks prior at that location. In the last two lines of stanza two, the soldier tells of his memory of the deceased soldier, explaining that he fired a shot at his tank and “hit [it]…like the entry of a demon” (7-8). This reference to the bullet as being a demon again goes to the intense and vicious nature of war. Moreover, Douglas goes on further to vividly describe the scene. The “gunpit spoil” (9) and mention of the body being “decayed” (16), both forms of organic imagery, work together in depicting the end result of war. The soldier’s life is gone and all that is left is his rotting body in the sun, which undeniably works to further intensify Douglas’s message by allowing the reader to visualize the vile remains. Though this is extremely powerful, Douglas adds significantly to this powerful image in stanza five. He describes the soldier’s skin as a place where “swart flies move” (18), and his stomach “burst like a cave” (20). This final depiction of the fallen soldier works to emphasize the result of war even further. The reader can see the realistic portrayal and can comprehend the impact the sight would have on the narrator, the presumed killer of the lifeless German.
These same vivid images also work to show the toll of the loss of a soldier’s life on the lover and killer alike. For the narrator, the sight of the man he killed rotting in the sun and the thought of his lover mourning his death is impactful. This is evidenced by his descriptions of the man’s body. Seeing the soldier in that state, decaying and covered in flies, obviously leaves a clear and haunting memory ingrained in his mind as it would any human being. His description of the scene is also respectful towards the fallen, as he is not jubilant in seeing the man dead and does not, in any way, mock the soldier. Then, the tone of the poem becomes clear when his mind wanders over to the thought of the pain he has caused the man’s lover, Steffi. The narrator knows the pain he has inflicted on the poor woman, as she would “weep to see” the final state of her lover (17). Through these thoughts, he realizes the terrible results of his actions, though warranted in war, and is moved by them as the poem ends with a somber and respectful tone in the final stanza. Here, the reading slows as the meaning of the poem is predicted and the poem is reaching its conclusion, giving it that somber, reflective tone. Pondering the situation and the pain he has caused, it is clear that he has been affected by what he has seen and done. He, through killing a soldier on the battlefield, has done the man’s lover “mortal hurt” (24), effectively killing the woman along with him. This can be extended, which is Douglas’s purpose, to the loved ones of deceased soldiers in general. Each man on the battlefield has someone who loves them that would be overwhelmingly damaged by their loved one’s death, just as Steffi has presumably been hurt. The huge impact the narrator has made on Steffi’s life, judging by the tone of the final stanza, will weigh on the narrator’s conscience for the rest of his life.
Keith Douglas, a soldier himself, vividly describes the somber scene of carnage that resulted from a fierce battle in “Vergissmeinnicht.” Utilizing an unset rhyme scheme, set yet changing structure, and vivid imagery, Douglas portrays the brutal conditions of war and how each soldier will be remembered by both lover and killer alike. The narrator returns to the site of the battle and finds the man he has killed. Through this experience, he realizes his impact on the man’s lover, whom he discovers through the picture beside the man’s quickly decaying body. He has caused this woman “mortal hurt” (24). She wanted the German soldier to always remember her, so she wrote on the picture by her name the word “Vergissmeinnicht” (11) or “forget me not.” Now that he has passed on, Steffi is the one who will never forget him, as will the narrator. “For here the lover and killer are mingled,” sharing in a mutual remembrance of the unnamed combatant until they too reach their final resting places, wherever they may be.