Explication of "I see them on their winding way" by Bishop Reginald Heber
The first six lines of the first stanza show the night after a battle, as the army walks away after a victory. The first stanza begins with the reprised line, “I see them on their winding way,” setting up the two subjects of this poem, the “I” which is the speaker, and “them” or the army that the speaker is watching. Immediately, the reader begins to feel the rhythm of the steady iambic tetrameter, which feels like it emulates the marching of the soldiers. Next, the speaker describes what this party of people looks like, and it is clear that this is not only an army, but one with little urgency. Heber uses words like “ranks,” “lofty deeds,” “victory,” and “banners,” to allow the audience to envision a battalion (2-5). Then, he contrasts this with words of leisure and fun such as: “winding,” “play,” “daring,” “blend,” and “waving arms” (1-5). These men are young, the “moonbeams play” (2) amongst them, they raise their voices to sing after their victory, their banners are “bright” (5) and they reflect in the “mellow light” (6). As Heber contrasts duty and play, he is also contrasting light and dark; the men are bright even in the middle of the night, both in spirit and physically. It is unclear the stance that the speaker has toward the army; the speaker seems to be swept up in the celebration of their victory while also being distinctly apart from it, not taking part in it. The speaker simply watches them march off, in perfect iambic, in heroic couplets. The couplets also add to the uniformity of the soldiers in contrast with their celebration, as this is a predictable and immediately satisfying rhyme scheme. In these first few lines is the only time in the poem there is a slant rhyme, with the rhyme of “daring high” and “victory.” This, along with it being the only three syllable word that finishes a line amongst a vast majority of one syllable concluding words, makes the word “victory” stand out amongst the other words and makes it noticeable. It is almost as if their victory was unmistakable and complete.
The tone of the poem shifts in the last five lines of the first stanza. This begins with the line, “They’re lost and gone - the moon is past” (7). This line immediately stands out to the reader as it is composed solely of one syllable words, making the iambic meter seem almost robotic. It slows the entire poem down, along with that caesura that also slows down the line. It also creates a scene change, where the soldiers are gone but our speaker remains for some unknown reason. The speaker does not seem as though he is a member of the opposing army, defeated. Instead, the speaker gives a sense that he is just an observer, like some kind of townsperson there to witness. Line 8 also contains only one syllable words, but these are unlike in the previous line because they slide into each other much more nicely in their sound. They lead smoothly into line 9, where the repetition of “And fainter, fainter fainter still,” reads like a hush, soft and slow. Literally, time has shifted now so that the speaker can no longer see them. The army has moved on from the battle and the sun is about to rise. Sunrise casts a shade over them, and their march is harder to hear by the minute. No longer are they the chipper army they were in the first half. Now they seem exhausted as indicated by the form. They still march in iambic tetrameter, but it is much slower than when they were fresh in the night. The starkest indication of this is in line ten, when the tetrameter is broken in favor of an echo: “The march is rising o’er the hill - rising oer the hill - rising oer the hill.” Here, the echo consists of a lame foot and two iambs; it is almost as if the caesuras are acting as the unstressed coupling to the stressed RI in the word “rising” (10). This lulls the poem to a crawl, emphasizing how slowly they walk over the hill. Also, since the speaker can still see this army during dawn, this long line emphasizes how large this army is and how long it takes for it to fall out of sight, even with a forest between them. Heber continues to play with the idea of light here as well, as while there are dark shadows over all of them, while the army rises over the hill, it mirrors what the sun is doing on the horizon. The final line of the stanza as copied into Virginia Lucas’ scrapbook is a reprise of the title line, and we now know the context and the “winding” has much less energy this time around.
In the context of Reginald Heber’s life, he likely would have only witnessed a battle, as he was a cleric, not a soldier, and perhaps found it ungodly to wish ill on the opposition. As for who this army could be, Heber went on a European tour after his graduation (1), as was fashionable amongst the wealthy at that time. His travels were notably delayed twice by the Napoleonic Wars, once in his departure from England, and again when he could not leave Russia due to the attacking armies (2). So perhaps this poem reflects his time abroad in another county, with the French army attacking, allowing him to be, as the speaker is in this poem, just an observer with no claim to loyalty to either side.
The second and last stanza begins with a bang, breathing all of the energy back into the poem that was lost in the end of the last stanza. Once again there is repetition, but instead of slowing the pace down, it only picks it up: “Again, again, the pealing drum / The clashing horn, they come! they come!” (12-3). Now the army is loud in an overbearing way. Instead of being a song of victory, this is a cry of battle. The speaker keeps repeating themselves, as if their thoughts are too frantic amongst the sound of approaching violence. Once again, however, the speaker seems to be able to watch the army from relatively far away; they take a while to meet there. Then, there is a reflection of line 9 in line 16: “and nearer, nearer, yet more near -.” These two lines contrasted bring the poem into focus, as the audience just watched them leave (“fainter, fainter fainter still”), and now they are back, after the side we stand on had been defeated in the last altercation. The only line in this stanza that slows rather than accelerates the rhythm is line 17, where suddenly the speaker can hear the voices of the men in the distance, and he calls this a “softened chorus,” the only softness in the stanza. In fact, all the imagery of the army now is harsh: “pealing,” “clashing,” “glittering,” “trampling,” and “thrilling.” This makes the soldiers into a much more daunting unit, Heber has a way of completely encapsulating how feelings can be different when something is over versus when confronted with the same foe again.
The tetrameter only becomes different once in the poem, on line 18, “Fourth, forth, and meet them on their way.” This line is notably different from the rest, as it is a spondee with two anapests. Perhaps this was not the speaker who thought this, but instead something that the speaker heard in the moment, or even said in the moment. This imperfect line is frantic, it is a command, and it stands out because of its form. It skips like a horse’s gallop, perhaps foretelling the next line in which the speaker hears hoofbeats. In this way, this change in form serves to both excite and confuse, and it is so dynamic and dramatic. The final lines of the poem escalate until the speaker is so frenzied, he can only repeat himself he is so overcome with fear and becomes nearly wordless: “And clashing horn they come, they come, / They come, they come, they come, they come!” (21-2). In this way, the poet is reinforcing the direct contrast to the end of the last stanza where safety was finally ensured, with the urgency and unpredictability of the final lines of the end stanza.
Works Cited:
“Reginald Heber.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 21 Dec. 2021, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reginald_Heber.