A Byronic hero, the Irish airman contemplates his demise
with aristocratic aplomb and a certain amount of ambiguity as he ponders that he is
unconcerned for either side of World War I, the Germans and the
English,
Those that I fight I do not
hate,
Those that I guard I do not
love
Watching his dreams
shatter, the Irish airman has the Joycean moment of insight in which he recognizes that
he has enlisted because of "A lonely impulse of delight," the excitement of chauvanism.
Now, the future seems "a waste of breath," which then makes his past equally meaningless
as he balances life and death. All has been for nothing as his country is "Kiltartan
Cross" and his countrymen "Kiltartan's poor" for whom
No likely end could bring them
loss
Or leave them happier than
before....
A waste of breath the years
behind
In balance with this life, this
death.
A poignant poem, "An
Irsh Airman Foresees His Death" expresses the existential futility of both life and
death, but it is a futility that the Romantic individual
accepts.
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