Get out the microscope, because we’re going through this poem line-by-line.
Lines 6-7
Does it matter?—losing your sight?
There's such splendid work for the blind;
- The speaker repeats the first words of the poem ("does it matter?"), only this time he asks if losing one's sight matters. Looks like we've got a refrain on our hands, Shmoopers. Stay sharp.
- He again gives a semi-sarcastic response, saying that "there's such splendid work for the blind," so you know, it's NBD if you lose your sight because you can just get a job that doesn't require, um, seeing. And it will be splendid. Yeah, because work is the only thing someone who has lost their vision worries about.
Lines 8-10
And people will always be kind,
As you sit on the terrace remembering
And turning your face to the light.
- The speaker again tells the soldier that "people will always be kind" while he sits on the "terrace" looking towards the "light" and reminiscing.
- What do you think the soldier might be "remembering"? The war? What he used to be able to see?
- Line 10 packs a major wallop. A blind person can of course turn to face the light—but he can't see it. He can only feel the warmth on his skin. The light will have gone out.
- So, just like in the first stanza, the soldier is missing out on something that other folks can share in—namely, a nice sunbath on the terrace.
- But it's cool, you know, because people are nice to him. So he shouldn't complain. (Or so says our speaker.