Epistrophy - "we" is the
repeated word at the end of the successive clauses. It depends on how you look at it,
but I see this as taking emphasis off the "we" and more emphasis on what "we" do. This
gives it somewhat of dark tone with the emphasis on play, sin, die, etc. And taking the
emphasis away from the subject "we" conveys a constructed insignificance; in other
words, it is as if the perception of the "we" in the poem is one of indifference; the
perception of the "we" is tragic but almost
nonchalant.
You also have
alliteration (sing sin). That with the brevity of the poem
gives it a kind of nursery rhyme tone.
This may be a
stretch, but it would be interesting to consider this as an
enthymeme, which is an informally stated syllogism. A
syllogism would be something like this:
Living is a
struggle.
All humans
live.
All humans
struggle.
Brook's poem is not a direct or even an indirect
syllogism or enthymeme. But the prosody of it resembles one and if you consider the
lifestyle (historical, cultural) of the pool players, you might assume that one thing
leads to another (dropping out, drinking, singing sin, dying soon -
young).
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