[Kell - Dog]

Can someone please help me with some question on this poem.

Beleguered Cities

Build your houses, build your houses, build your towns,
Fell the woodland, to a gutter turn the brook,
Pave the meadows, pave the meadows, pave the downs,
Plant your bricks and mortar where the grasses shook,
The wind-swept grasses shook.
Build, build your Babels black against the sky -
But mark yon small green blade, your stones between,
The single spy
Of that uncounted host you have outcast;
For with their tiny pennons waving green
They shall storm your streets at last.

Questions:

1. Who is the poem addressed to?

2. Try to express the idea in the first five lines.

3. Give two examples from a modern city of what the poet means by 'Babels'. Is this a good description for the poet's purpose?

4. The second half of the poem suggests a battle. What words and ideas suggest an attack?

5. What is the theme?

6. What does this poem suggest about the poet's attitude to man's achievements? How relevant is the poem in the 'atomic age'?

Thanks