Robert Service’s poem “Tri-colour” blurs the lines between pastoral imagery and the devastation of war. Throughout the semester, the theme of nature and the pastoral as an escape for the war has stood out to me the most, with this poem challenging that very theme. Rather than floral imagery providing comfort for the soldier, it haunts him, reminding him of all the devastation he has witnessed on the front.

In works such as “A Farewell to Arms” by Ernest Hemingway, we’ve seen landscapes and beautiful descriptions of nature offering an escape from the brutality of the war. Service takes away this idea of escape when viewing nature, feeling no way to evade the haunting of the war. In addition to the earlier theme mentioned, I feel that this poem also connects to the idea of the war forever being intertwined in the lives of those who lived through it. This soldier will never be able to view simple, beautiful things such as poppies or cornflowers as symbols of nature anymore. They will now forever be ghosts of the war to him, a reminder of what has been lost.

These themes have remained in the back of my mind for this entire semester, through each text we’ve examined. I felt that Service’s poem tied in both themes so powerfully, and I chose to select it for that very reason.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yjg3a5ZKlSaWi83XpgBVbH4agO7KiKfL/view?usp=drive_link