But I’ll tell ’em in Blighty, wherever I be,

How the Guards came through.

NOTES AND QUESTIONS

Biography. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-⸺) is an English author. He was educated in Stonyhurst College and at the University of Edinburgh. In 1885 he was graduated as a doctor of medicine and soon afterwards began practice. It was about this time that his first book, A Study in Scarlet, was published. His greatest success came with the publication of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, a collection of detective stories that introduced a character who has become as famous as if he had actually lived. Other books that have added to his fame are The Lost World, The New Revelation, and The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. He has written many interesting articles on the World War, particularly descriptions of the western campaigns. In 1902 he was knighted.

Discussion. 1. Who is supposed to be telling the story? 2. Why were the soldiers of the Twenty-first so disheartened? 3. What effect upon them had the arrival of the Guards? 4. Do you think that you would have felt like cheering if you had been a soldier of the Twenty-first? 5. What effect upon you has the line “Dressing as straight as a hem”? 6. What picture does the last stanza give you? 7. Does the poet make you see the Guards as they came through? 8. What do the last three lines suggest? 9. What does “Blighty” mean to you? 10. Why does the one who is telling the story say that we could not understand?

Phrases