Question- To break earth's sleep at all ?...... What does the poet mean by 'to break earth's sleep?

Answer -

In the beginning, there was no life on earth. The sun toiled millions of years to create life on it. So, by to break earth's sleep' the poet means to create life on earth.

Important Explanations

1.

Reference: These lines have been taken from the poem Futility' written by Gilfred Owen who was called war poet of 20th Century. The poem is written in the form of an elegiac lyric and it first appeared in 1918 in the nation.

Context: It is one of Owen's ferial poems, continues the auther's quest to criticise the war, it is written in the form of an elegy for an unnamed Soldier who passed on the war and died there was not prepared to die. He joined the war with the hope of securing his home, his nation.

Explanation: The poem begins by addressing the companions of the dead solider, urging them to 'more him into seen' with the hope that the gentle rays of the sun will revive his consciousness.

The Speaker by the line. 'Whispering of field half-sown' suggests that the Solider whose life is curtailed by the war is young and it is eagerly wished that the sun, which is a life -giner, Will once again bring the dead Soldier to life because half of his life experiences are yet to be received. It was always the sun that somehow wakes him up while he was at home or in France. However the speaker mertion that even the sun could not bring life into him on this snowy morning. Even though the speaker tried to bring in the image of light through the sun, yet this stanza ends in a state of depair for the soldier is dead. The soldier who has fought in the war and died there was not prepared to die., he joined the war with the hope of securing his home, his nation.

N.B. - 

1. Seen symboliyes at the image of God in this poem.
2. Assonance is the repetion of vowel sound in the same line such. For example- the sound of /l/in 'move him into the sun.'
3. The poem's tone ultimately comes across mournful, doubtful and discouraging.

2.

Reference: As above

Context: The second stanza depicts a change in tone of the speaker who takes on a questioning attitude regarding life. The sun and the soil that lead to the growth of seeds is suggestive of how despite the soldier's death, life has to go on. It signfies the paradox of life and death.

Explanation: The second stanza opens with a similar image-that of Soil and seeds. It states, 'think how. It wakes the seeds' - showing that life, regardless of the soldier's death, will go on, Life has continued for much grander things, for much bigger things, for much more traumatic things and once again, Owen draws a connection between life, like the soil, and the man, now devoid of it. Owen trees again-Woke once the clay of a cold star, 'he writes, alluding to the Biblical story of man created out of Earth of God populating the planet with people, he had formed in his image. The speaker is Perplexed at how something as precious one beautiful as life can always lose out of death and puts forth a rhetorical question as a way of underlying his shock: 'Are limbs....... Too hard to Stir?' The dead body alblit Surrounded by warm Sunlight, Will never Come back to life. The Speaker then asks about 'Clay grew tall"?('Clay' being a reference to the earth that human beings Originally came from-an idea common in Creation myths thoughout the World, including bible) This Owen's religious Cries Coming to a head, Owen's Under Standing of religions Slowly Skevring towards the agnostic and the disbeliering.

The Speaker Woefully wonders in the poems final two lines why the 'Fatuous,' 'Or pointless, 'Sunbeams'Would help create life on earth in the first place. When that life would eventually die. Owen is asking, begging to gain an answer to Why did God bother making man and making the Earth only to lead him to this?Were we created just to bill each other? Futility ends on the silence that follows, learing the Questions Unanswered and extinguising all the sense of building hope that owen was gently grafted throught the Poem.

N.B. -

1. In this paragraph shows the use of the extended metaphors of life, Seeds, the Sun and the earth.
2. The poem shows the use of rhetorical questions as shows in the example-
'Full nerved, Still warm To Break earth's sleep at all?"
3.Symbolism clay is symbolic to birth, warmth and cold are symbolic to being alive and dead.

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