Review of Edward Thomas's 'As the Team's Head Brass.'

'As The Team's Head Brass' by Edward Thomas. Review for 27-Oct -2nd Nov 2010. Poetry workshop Weeks 5- 6.




I originally reviewed 'The Lift' by Seamus Heaney and decided to select another one.



The mise-en scene is exquisite. The poet narrator, Thomas, is painting himself in.

The first six lines have sketched in all the actors, the stage and the unfolding action; so we have the head-brass(or lead-horse), its brasses glinting as it turns at the end of a ploughed furrow. We have the team and plough, the fallen elm tree on whose trunk the narrator is able to sit and watch the scene and the glimpse he catches of the lovers disappearing into a wood (taking their pleasure, grasping the moment or being part of the unfolding of happenstance, of fate). We have the ploughman himself intent on narrowing the square of charlock, of harrowing or ploughing the field ready for sowing. The backdrop as well as the blank verse allows the conversation that unfolds between the ploughman and the narrator to serve, it seems to me, as a kind of discussion on determinism and free will, on the necessity or otherwise of war, of serving wars, of the First World War in which Thomas himself served as an officer.

The poem as a whole is an exploration in a kind of philosophy. Existentialism comes to mind in the sense of a philosophy which emphasizes freedom of choice and personal and moral responsibility but which regards human existence in a hostile universe as unexplainable, without its own raison d'etre.

In this light we have the discussion of fate, of what will be, set against what is chosen, how we plough our own furrow, plough the furrows of others, narrow down the field, choose one path against another, how we are expected to abandon our own moral imperatives, how serving a war is an imperative. It's possible to see many questions in a reading of the poem. In any case, the narrator serves as a kind of devil's advocate in the dialogue.

Ploughman "Have you been out?"

Narrator" No".

"And don't want to, perhaps?"

"If I could only come back again, I should.

I could spare an arm. I shouldn't want to lose

A leg. If I should lose my head, why, so

I should want nothing more...Have many gone

From here?" "Yes" "Many lost?" "Yes, a good few.

Only two teams work on the farm this year.

One of my mates is dead...now if he had stayed here

we should have moved that tree."

"And I should not have sat here.. Everything would have been different

For it would have been another world.""Ay,

and a better, though if we could see all, all might seem good."

Were we able to predict the future we should live our lives accordingly, prevent war or each other from fighting someone else's wars. This is counterpointed by the sobering thought that fate is dealt, that it comes hurtling or creeping towards us or perhaps is turned over by the farrow or plough. All roads taken,as Frost would have it, mean other roads not taken, elms not sat on or sat on, conversations and the observable delights of a team ploughing taking place. Thomas seems to evoke by contrast the 'what is to be' by acts, actors and the things acted upon,. The plough, the team, the man narrowing the field of charlock, the lovers going into and out of the wood all remind us that the world is turning, people are getting up to all sorts because of and despite the capriciousness of fate.

I particularly like the concluding lines'for the last time I watch the clods crumble and topple over after the ploughshare and the stumbling team.

I'm not so sure that the fallen elm and stumbling team are a metaphor for fallen soldiers as is often supposed.



Thomas has a delicious eye for the world around him and there are murmurings of the idea that we are not quite equal to the beauty we observe in this poem, picked up later in The Glory'. and othe poems in the vein of 'Adlestrop.' It is this reluctance and pessimism tinged with beauty that Thomas finds, like a pulse.