Throughout both classical and contemporary literature, the concept of religion is often posited as the single constant which we, as humans, can count on amidst the turmoil of life. However, Wilfred Owen turns this idea on its head by portraying religion as one of the main issues that contributes to his inner conflict. His poem “On My Songs” skillfully conveys this standpoint with the use of several poetic techniques, such as metaphor, diction and assonance. Firstly, it is important to note that Owen wrote this poem in 1913, a year before the outbreak of World War I. It was during this period that he was being trained as a priest in a vicarage. Despite these circumstances, Owen found himself losing his faith as he increasingly felt more and more out of place in this religious setting as shown in line 10, where he describes himself as a “motherless child”, “singing his frightened self to sleep." The word “motherless” is used metaphorically, almost in a self-pitying way, as this experience represented the first time that Owen found himself away from home for an extended period of time. At the vicarage, writing poems as well as practicing other similar art forms was discouraged, which left Owen in a moral quandary. In line 9, he speaks of his “own weird reveries” - abnormal daydreams which he thought were out of place in the environment which he was in, and reinforcing the central theme of inner turmoil and confusion. The assonance in the next line - “low croonings of a motherless child” - suggests a deep and depressed mood, perhaps an indication of his mental state at the time. In the first line of the poem, Owen alludes to “unseen poets” who have previously been able to answer his woe. In fact, it is almost as if their works of literature were written with the intention to echo his “own soul’s cry”, and as a result “easing the flow of his dumb tears”. This line holds a double meaning, with “dumb”