O What Is That Sound

 The Poem is told through...

1. The form of ballad 
2. It is a conversation between two people (perhaps a couple)
3. The stanza is divided into a call and response except for the last stanza which is only the narrator because his partner left when the army came. 
4. The poem could have either a male or female dictation, however the narrator would be more likely to be male as the context of the poem points to a man trying to avoid conscription. 
5. The poem is written in 1st person. 
6. The poem is written in the subjective - The narrator fills the poem with lots of emotions and it is biased.
7. The poem uses a lot of repetition to evoke emotions, eg, the repetition of 'O' which is also used in the title creates a feeling of repression and sadness. The sound of the letter is also a very soft sound but is also quite despairing. 
8. The repetition in line 2 of the stanza's is there to emphasis the narrators despair and paranoia.
9. The poem has a rhyming pattern of A,B,A,B a traditional rhyming pattern - could this be to symbolise how often this mans story happens. 
10. As the poem progresses the tone changes and becomes more morbid and desperate.
11. The punctuation helps emphasis the emotions of the narrator.