Religion

London

As a result of different revolutions, the people of London were losing faith. The church was not as impressionable, like it once was.

• ‘in every face I meet Marks of weakness, marks of woe’
• _ ‘black’ning Church appalls’_
• ‘blights with plagues the Marriage hearse.’

The Charge of the Light Brigade

Many of the soldiers would have had a belief in God. A lot of the religious imagery, in this poem is found in the Bible; Psalms 23:

• _‘All in the valley of Death’ _
• ‘Into the valley of Death’
• ‘Into the mouth of hell’

Exposure

The soldiers experienced bitter weather conditions, especially through the winter months, causing many to lose their lives. Both sides were apparently blessed by God but their faith waned when God didn’t appear to be helping them:

• ‘Slowly our ghosts drag home’
• ‘For God’s invincible spring our love is made afraid’
• ‘For love of God seems dying’
• ‘His frost will fasten on this mud’

Storm on the Island

The storm represents the religious conflict between the Catholics and Protestants, in Ireland:

• ‘We are prepared’
• ‘The wizened earth has never troubled us’
• ‘leaves and branches Can raise a chorus in a gale’
• ‘no natural shelter’
• ‘You might think that the sea is company’
• We are bombarded by the empty air’
• ‘Strange, it is a huge nothing that we fear.’

Tissue

The people look to different books for information to guide and stimulate them:

• ‘Paper thinned by age or touching’
• _ ‘well-used books’_
• ‘the back of the Koran’
• ‘names and histories… height and weight, who died where and how’
• ‘pages smoothed and stroked and turned transparent with attention’