To me the front is a mysterious whirlpool. Though I am in still water far away from its centre, I feel the whirl of the vortex sucking me slowly, irresistibly, inescapably into itself. From the earth, from the air, sustaining forces pour into us-mostly from the earth. To no man does the earth mean so much as to the soldier. When he presses himself down upon her long and powerfully, when he buries his face and his limbs deep in her from the fear of death by shell-fire, then she is his only friend, his brother, his mother; he stifles his terror and his cries in her silence and her security; she shelters him and gives him a new lease of ten seconds of life, receives him again and often for ever. Earth! -Earth! -Earth! Earth with thy folds, and hollows and holes, into which a man may fling himself and crouch down! In the spasm of terror, under the hailing of annihilation, in the bellowing death of the explosions, O Earth, thou grantest us the great resisting surge of new-won life. Our being, almost utterly carried away by the fury of the storm, streams back through our hands from thee, and we, thy redeemed ones, bury ourselves in thee, and through the long minutes in a mute agony of hope bite into thee with our lips!

Questions:
1. In paragraph one, what two things are being compared? What words extend this metaphor?
What effect is gained by extending the metaphor throughout the entire paragraph?

2. Create your own metaphor: The Front is ____. Write an additional sentence extending the metaphor.

3. What is being personified in this passage? What words indicate this is personification? What action verbs describe a human interaction?

4. Why does the author join four sentences with a semicolon?
5. What emotion is expressed in the line “Earth! — Earth! — Earth!”?

6. What words lend a religious tone in paragraph four?