# As the Team’s Head-Brass explained — Poetry

> Chapter companion for Poetry by Edward Thomas.

## What happens

A speaker sits on a fallen elm tree in a field, watching a ploughman work and engaging in intermittent conversation about the weather and the war. The ploughman reveals that a mate was killed in France, and the talk reflects on how the war has changed everything. The lovers who disappeared into the wood reappear, and the speaker watches the plough continue its work.

## Themes in this chapter

### War and Mortality

The conversation centers on the war, the death of a mate in France, and the altered circumstances of the farm.

### Place and Belonging

The fallen elm and the field are central to the scene, and the speaker's presence is tied to the war's disruption of the landscape.

## Character check-ins

### Unknown

The speaker who sits on the fallen elm and converses with the ploughman.

### The Huckster

The ploughman who works the team and talks about the war and the fallen elm.

## Key lines

> As the team’s head-brass flashed out on the turn The lovers disappeared into the wood.

When the horses' brass harness ornaments glinted at the turn, the couple vanished into the forest.

_The opening lines set the scene of the lovers' departure and the start of the speaker's observation._

> 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.

If I could return from war, I would. I could lose an arm, but not a leg. If I lost my head, I'd want nothing at all.

_The speaker expresses a grim calculus of acceptable war injuries, highlighting the horror of the conflict._

> Now if He had stayed here we should have moved the tree. And I should not have sat here. Everything Would have been different. For it would have been Another world.

If the dead mate had remained, the tree would have been moved, and I wouldn't be sitting here. Everything would be different—a whole other world.

_The conversation reflects on how one death changes the entire course of events and the landscape._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/poetry_5_se/chapters/as-the-team-s-head-brass
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/poetry_5_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/poetry_5_se/chapters