Understand ‘No Men Are Foreign’: Summary & Poetic Devices

Have you ever seen people from other countries as different or unfamiliar? We often separate others as “us” and “them” based on language, culture, or nationality. In the poem ‘No Men Are Foreign’, the poet challenges this way of thinking and reminds us that, despite these differences, we are all human. He highlights how we share the same Earth, feelings, and basic needs, encouraging us to see the common bond that unites everyone.

Table of Contents

• Poetic Summary
• Poetic Device

Poetic Summary

This is an insightful poem that propagates the idea of universal brotherhood. The poet says that if man attempts to remove all borders of the countries from the face of the Earth then no country will remain foreign. He states that no country will be foreign in absence of borders between the countries. He says that although the uniforms of the soldiers belong to different countries yet the humans wearing those uniforms are the same. He further says that, each and every one of us walk on the same Earth and sustain ourselves from the same resources of the Earth. God has bestowed us with the gifts of nature like air, water and the sun and these bounties of nature make our life comfortable. We all will do farming when there is no war and after our death, we will be buried in the same land. Besides, all of us follow similar routines like waking up and sleeping. We also love and desire to be loved in exchange. The poet presents all these paradigms to show that there is no difference among people from countries. The poet persuades the readers to remember that God has blessed our enemies with identical appearances and strength which can be won by love. There is one common thing on every land, that is life, and when we will realise that our enemies are like us, there will be no war. When we choose to wage war against anyone, we pollute the Earth with their blood as war is the harbinger of death, fire and bloodshed. The poem ends with the first line written in reverse, that mentions that no men are foreign and no countries are strange. 

Poetic Device 

In this section, you will learn about the major poetic devices used in the poem. 

• Metaphor: Indirect comparison.
  Examples: Uniform refers to the military of different countries.
  War time is compared to the winter season.

• Repetition: A word or sentence is repeated to lay emphasis on it. “Remember” and “no men are strange, no countries foreign” are repeated to emphasise unity.

• Alliteration: Repetition of a consonant sound in two or more closely placed words.
  Stanza 1 - body, breathes
  Stanza 2 - war's, winter

• Enjambment: Running lines of the poetry from one line to the next without using any kind of punctuation to indicate a stop.
  Example:
  Beneath all uniforms, a single body breathes
  Like ours: the land our brothers walk upon
  Is earth like this, in which we all shall lie.

• Rhyme scheme: The poem is written in free verse.