How can poets make powerful comments about the relationship between human activity and land?

'As the team's head-brass flashed out' by Edward Thomas is a poem written when England was embroiled in the most deadly form of human activity: war. The grave ramifications of the First World War pervades most memorably through the presentation of the 'the fallen elm' and the 'blizzard'. The blizzard seems to resemble the ruthlessness of war and becomes a symbol of terror and death. Indeed, the powerlessness of the elm facing the blizzard reflects the feebleness of soldiers in war and creates a gruesome image of humans being brought down by gunfire. This is made particularly potent by the matter-of-fact statement of the ploughman - 'One of my mates is dead.' - where the caesura heightens the dull sense of loss and mirrors the ploughman remembering his friend, as a result of the length of pause. The fallen elm may in fact be the landscape's direct representation of the ploughman's dead friend, acting as a constant moment mori, particularly as he has been killed on 'The very night of the blizzard', suggesting an affinity between elm and soldier.