The speaker hears an army, somewhere in the distance, making its thunderous way across "the land," presumably as part of an invasion. Notice how the lack of detail here builds tension in the poem: the reader has no idea whose army this is, nor for what purpose they fight. All the reader knows is that something dramatic, and likely threatening, is taking place.
The intense auditory imagery in these lines creates a vivid sonic landscape for the reader. The speaker doesn't see the army (at least, not just yet) but hears them. This makes the army seem all the more frightening because the speaker (and the reader) doesn't yet know what they look like, and thus might imagine all sorts of foes.
The meter here is mostly iambic, meaning it follows a da DUM pattern (albeit with an anapest, da da DUM, tossed in):
I hear | an ar- | my char- | ging upon | the land,
Both iambs and anapests are "rising" feet, meaning they move from unstressed to stressed beats. This creates a sense of propulsion, evoking the galloping of those horses and the army's "charging" motion. The consonance and assonance in "army charging" add energy and emphasis to this opening line as well.
Line 2 then reveals a bit more about this army: these aren't modern soldiers with tanks and artillery. Instead, this army uses horses for transport. The pounding of those horses' hooves creates a sound like "thunder" as their legs go "plunging" through the water (this detail suggests the army has just landed on a coastline). The horses' powerful movements whip "foam about their knees," violently disturbing the surface of the water (just as they disturb the speaker's sleep).
The poem uses various techniques to create its own poetic "thunder," bringing this auditory imagery to life:
And the thunder of horses plunging, foam about their knees:
The meter here once again relies on march-like iambs and galloping anapests to evoke the horses' movements:
And the thun- | der of hor- | ses plun- | ging, foam | about | their knees:
Finally, in its use of horses, the poem perhaps recalls the apocalyptic scenes of the Bible's final book, Revelation, in which the appearance of four horsemen heralds the end of the world.
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