Flashed all their sabres bare,
Flashed as they turned in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wondered.
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right through the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reeled from the sabre stroke
Shattered and sundered.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.

“Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!” he said.

The themes of the poem are following the orders of one's leader although they are erring and fighting for a dying cause.

Style, topics and themes

A
A
A

B
C
C

C
B

B

Tennyson employs no rigid rhyme scheme, but follows the general pattern shown below. His somewhat awkward placement of lines and punctuation is used to emphasize the rhyme and rhythm of the poem.

The topic of the poem is the miscommunication of the commanders and the duteousness of the calvary in the Charge of the Light Brigade.

Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die.

Was there a man dismayed?
Not though the soldier knew
Someone had blundered.

Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of hell
Rode the six hundred.