R&R:
1) He is describing cannons that are mounted onto war ships.
2) "Jackies" refer to the soldiers that are going for the coming war, and the "war chanties" refer to them winning the war, thus cheering about their victory.
3) The shovel are used to scoop out the soil, which refers to scooping out soil and making space for the dead bodies of the soldiers who have sacrificed their lives for the war. The word "gun" implies the equipment of the soldiers, thus having been a soldier and held a gun, means there was a chance that the soldier would come into contact with the "brother" of it, the shovel, which signifies death. And implying that death and war are related in a way or another, thus the whole sentence, is stating that soldiers would have to sacrifice their lives during war.
4) It is to signify that after a war, when the victorious party gets hold of a city they have defeated, that they have authority over the citizens, and that the citizens do not dare to go against any command from the enemy soldiers. However, this is so as they no have other choice but to do so.
5) The effect of such contrasting actions between the 2 stanza is that, is to tell the reader that war is a cycle, and that things repeat themselves again and again. After something is knocked down, it has to be rebuilt once again. From the effect, I can safely assume that the persona'a attitude is that the citizens and soldiers have hope to gain back their freedom, since after they have lost their city, they will gain it back as war is a cycle.
6) I find that it is always much harder to built up a society once again, after it has been torn down. The society may not only refer to it's infrastructure, but the whole lot of it, including the citizen's psychological and physical pain. For example, when Singapore defeated by the Japanese during 1942, it only took a few days before the morale of the whole city dropped, and that they thought that they could not have survived the whole thing that easily. It lasted for 3 years, and during this 3 years, numerous innocent citizens of Singapore had died, causing psychological pain to their friends and relatives. After the British took back their ex-colony, it was tough building back from scratch. The hardest part of rebuilding the society, is still attempting to recover the citizens confidence in them. It was also living hell for them, when they thought back of the horrible scenes they have witnessed during the occupation itself. The mental harm they were going through from the loss of their loved ones were also incurable in such a short period of time. Building back infrastructure was not much of a problem, but for the society to get back, the people had recover from their mental shock first.
7) There is a progression from loud sounds to softer ones, this can be seen from "drum of hoofs", followed by "hum of motors" and lastly "silent wheels". I imagine the sound of future wars to be much more silent, as technology improves, there will be more advanced weapons being devised. And from then on, war will not be 1 to compete who have better soldiers, but to compete who have the latest equipment and arms. "Silent" makes me infer that the future wars may be about silencing people, without attracting attention. Such examples may be Chemical Wars, ironically silent yet deadly, compared to military fights.
8) ?
War Poem:
Germany and the Japanese,
taking lives of many.
First it was the killing,
followed by horrendous bombings.
Jews and other countries,
lived in fear in time.
First it was the worrying,
followed my the memories.
America and Europe,
stopped this tragedy from continuing.
First the nuclear bomb,
followed by massive killing.
What was lost?
Oh, what was lost.
Lives of the innocent,
innocent of their deaths.
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