In any case, the poem evokes the horror of battle in general. it begins in the middle of the poem, and ends there too. The poem builds a sense of a chaotic, frightening, and frenetic environment. But just as it is set on the battlefield, it's also set within the soldier's psyche. Indeed, it's within the soldier's innermost thoughts that the most important part of the poem takes place—his epiphany (in stanza two), in which he suddenly sees, too clearly and too late, the absurdity of the war in which he is likely to meet his death.