There are echoes of other poems. In stanza 4 Owen is listening. Different circumstances, same result. Though some may think this a generalisation too far. Stanza 6 and Owen continues to reflect, directly on the miners who perished, indirectly on his own dead comrades.
Death reputes Peace lies indeed.
We might suppose recompense for the fallen were it not for the following stanzas which cast on the forging lines a suspicion of irony. Owen's diction always makes us think. In fact the echoes of the war reverberate throughout the poem. Owen with his phobia and his past experiences to prompt him, whether the ground they are left in be a coalfield in Staffordshire or a battlefield on the Western Front. The analyses of poems published on this site are the personal opinions of the authors concerned and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Wilfred Owen Association or its committee unless specifically stated.