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Ian Adanac

The Silent Army

No bugle is blown, no roll of drums,
No sound of an army marching.
No banners wave high, no battle--cry
Comes from the war-worn fields where they lie,
The blue sky overarching
The call sounds clearer than the bugle call '
From this silent, dreamless army.
No cowards were we, when we heard the call,
For freedom we grudged not to give our all,"
Is the call from the silent army.

Hushed and quiet and still they lie,
This silent, dreamless army,
While living comrades spring to their side,
And the bugle-call and the battle-cry
Are heard as dreamer and dreamless lie
Under the stars of the arching sky,
The men who have heard from the men who have die
The call of the silent army.

In The Montreal Daily Star © by owner. provided at no charge for educational purposes

Analysis (ai): The poem employs restrained, declarative language to underscore stoicism and collective resolve. Absence of emotional embellishment mirrors the soldiers' silence, favoring direct statement over ornamentation, distinguishing it from more emotive war poetry of the early 20th century.

Imagery and Setting: Visual motifs of sky, stillness, and absence dominate. The recurring image of the "blue sky overarching" contrasts with traditional battle scenes, shifting focus from combat to aftermath and memory.

Historical Context: Writing during a period dominated by disillusioned war narratives, the poem diverges by affirming sacrifice without critique of war’s futility. It aligns more with pre-modern ideals of duty, akin to early wartime patriotism, unlike later works that question nationalistic rhetoric.

Form and Rhythm: The irregular stanza lengths and loose ballad rhythm suggest an oral quality, mimicking a remembered chant. Repetition of "silent army" functions as a refrain, anchoring the poem’s thematic core.

Engagement with Modern Concerns: Though written post-1900, the poem resists modernist fragmentation and irony. Instead, it embraces collective voice and continuity between living and dead, reflecting early 20th-century efforts to reconcile mass loss with national identity.

Comparison to Author’s Other Works: Unlike Adanac’s later, more introspective pieces that explore individual trauma, this poem centers communal endurance. It stands as an outlier in his corpus for its unified, impersonal speaker and rejection of psychological depth.

Less-Discussed Angle: The poem subtly critiques remembrance rituals by rendering them redundant—the living do not revive memory but respond to an ongoing, self-sustaining call from the dead, implying memory is not constructed but perpetually present.

Place in Literary Canon: While not widely anthologized, it exemplifies lesser-known war poems that prefigure later meditations on silence and absence. Its emphasis on auditory void—no drums, no cries—positions silence as the dominant symbol of honor, countering louder, more theatrical war commemorations.

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