No Men Are Foreign

Answer: (i) The poet is speaking about the uniforms of soldiers from different countries — military uniforms that distinguish one nation's army from another. He suggests that beneath these different uniforms, all human beings are the same. (ii) The poet suggests we are all the same by pointing out that we all have the same body, breathe the same air, walk on the same earth, and will all lie in the same earth after death. We all have eyes, hands, and needs for sun, air, and water.

Answer: The five ways in which we all are alike in stanza 1 are:

• "single body breathes" — we all have bodies that breathe.
• "our brothers" — we are all brothers.
• "walk upon" — we all walk on the earth.
• "earth like this" — we all live on the same kind of earth.
• "we all shall lie" — we all will be buried in the earth.

Answer: The common features in stanza 2 are:

• "sun and air and water" — we all need these.
• "peaceful harvests" — we all eat food from the earth.
• "Their hands are ours" — we all have hands.
• "in their lines we read" — we all have the same lines on our palms from labor.
• "A labour not different" — we all work similarly.

Answer: This happens during times of war, conflict, or political tension. Leaders, politicians, or propagandists often tell people to hate others from different countries or groups. We should not do as we are told at such times. The poet says that when we hate our brothers, we are actually dispossessing, betraying, and condemning ourselves. We are defiling the human earth and outraging the innocence of the air that belongs to all of us. No men are foreign and no countries strange.