Several times the poet puts together contrasting words ("merciful and sneering men" and "kindly and unfairly tried"). These word choices highlight the author's tone of .

These word choices highlight the tone of irony.

Explanation:

The question above is about the poem "War is Kind" written by Stephen Crane. The entire poem has a strong tone of verbal irony, which can first be found in the poem speaker's statements about why women should not cry because the men they love were killed in war, because war is a good and benevolent thing. This characteristic of war contains strong irony, since nothing good and benevolent would kill anyone.

Verbal irony is reinforced by the use of contradictory ideas like those found in the question above, where the author mixes the characteristics that war promoters impose on themselves and the real characteristics among them.

i think the first one, it makes the most sense.

or this and that you know