An observant narrator, ostensibly a soldier, who reflects on the brutal realities of armed warfare. He witnesses the horrific injuries of his comrades, experiencing a profound sense of survivor's guilt while his own sight remains intact. Instead of accepting the patriotic and romantic conventions of his era, he documents the grisly reality of the trenches and demands that the true physical cost of combat be recognized.

A personification of traditional romance and the archetypal addressee of English love poetry. Love possesses the standard attributes of romantic verse: red lips, sparkling eyes, a slender trembling form, a soft voice, and pale hands. Within the text, these idealized features are measured against the visceral injuries of warfare and found to be inadequate and superficial.

The young men fighting and dying on the front lines. Driven by a pure devotion for their country and their brothers-in-arms, they face horrifying physical mutilation, chemical weapon attacks, and extreme deprivation. Their broken bodies and silenced voices stand in severe opposition to the comfortable, untouched subjects of romantic verse.

The traditional symbol of human emotion and passion, personified by the speaker through a direct apostrophe. The speaker contrasts this abstract, romantic notion of a hot, full heart with the literal, biological organs of the soldiers, which swell and burst from fatal gunshot wounds on the battlefield.