Content Warning: This section discusses war trauma and death.

Poetry is an important motif in the novel. Ellwood references various poets, and his love of poetry is representative of his innocence and his desire to see beauty in the world. In particular, he repeatedly uses the word “magic” to refer to England, as he loves the beauty of England’s poets and their discussions of love, the land, courage, valor, and more.

In his budding relationship with Gaunt during the war, he regularly uses poetry to describe how he feels, quoting poems like “They Flee From Me” by Thomas Wyatt, with the lines “I have seen them gentle, tame, and meek, / That now are wild and do not remember” used to compare the way that Gaunt has become distant and detached (104). When Gaunt and Ellwood prepare to leave to capture the German soldier, Gaunt tries to make plans, but Ellwood repeatedly interrupts him with lines of poetry from Shakespeare. He recites, “My spirit loved and loves him yet / Like some poor girl whose heart is set / On one whose rank exceeds her own” (144). These lines are Ellwood’s attempt to tell Gaunt how he truly feels for the first time, confessing his love through poetry.