To a Childless Woman by Siegfried Sassoon
You think I cannot understand. Ah, but I do… I have been wrung with anger and compassion for you. I wonder if you’d loathe my pity, if you knew. But you shall know. I’ve carried in my heart too long This secret burden. Has not silence wrought your wrong— Brought you to dumb and wintry […]
Thrushes by Siegfried Sassoon
Tossed on the glittering air they soar and skim, Whose voices make the emptiness of light A windy palace. Quavering from the brim Of dawn, and bold with song at edge of night, They clutch their leafy pinnacles and sing Scornful of man, and from his toils aloof Whose heart’s a haunted woodland whispering; Whose […]
‘They’ by Siegfried Sassoon
The Bishop tells us: ‘When the boys come back ‘They will not be the same; for they’ll have fought ‘In a just cause: they lead the last attack ‘On Anti-Christ; their comrades’ blood has bought ‘New right to breed an honourable race, ‘They have challenged Death and dared him face to face.’ ‘We’re none of […]
The Working Party by Siegfried Sassoon
Three hours ago he blundered up the trench, Sliding and poising, groping with his boots; Sometimes he tripped and lurched against the walls With hands that pawed the sodden bags of chalk. He couldn’t see the man who walked in front; Only he heard the drum and rattle of feet Stepping along barred trench boards, […]
The Troops by Siegfried Sassoon
Dim, gradual thinning of the shapeless gloom Shudders to drizzling daybreak that reveals Disconsolate men who stamp their sodden boots And turn dulled, sunken faces to the sky Haggard and hopeless. They, who have beaten down The stale despair of night, must now renew Their desolation in the truce of dawn, Murdering the livid hours […]
The Tombstone-Maker by Siegfried Sassoon
He primmed his loose red mouth and leaned his head Against a sorrowing angel’s breast, and said: ‘You’d think so much bereavement would have made ‘Unusual big demands upon my trade. ‘The War comes cruel hard on some poor folk; ‘Unless the fighting stops I’ll soon be broke.’ He eyed the Cemetery across the road. […]
The Rear-Guard by Siegfried Sassoon
Groping along the tunnel, step by step, He winked his prying torch with patching glare From side to side, and sniffed the unwholesome air. Tins, boxes, bottles, shapes too vague to know, A mirror smashed, the mattress from a bed; And he, exploring fifty feet below The rosy gloom of battle overhead. Tripping, he grapped […]
The Poet as Hero by Siegfried Sassoon
You’ve heard me, scornful, harsh, and discontented, Mocking and loathing War: you’ve asked me why Of my old, silly sweetness I’ve repented– My ecstasies changed to an ugly cry. You are aware that once I sought the Grail, Riding in armour bright, serene and strong; And it was told that through my infant wail There […]
The One-Legged Man by Siegfried Sassoon
Propped on a stick he viewed the August weald; Squat orchard trees and oasts with painted cowls; A homely, tangled hedge, a corn-stalked field, And sound of barking dogs and farmyard fowls. And he’d come home again to find it more Desirable than ever it was before. How right it seemed that he should reach […]
The Investiture by Siegfried Sassoon
GOD with a Roll of Honour in His hand Sits welcoming the heroes who have died, While sorrowless angels ranked on either side Stand easy in Elysium’s meadow-land. Then you come shyly through the garden gate, Wearing a blood-soaked bandage on your head; And God says something kind because you’re dead, And homesick, discontented with […]
The Heritage by Siegfried Sassoon
Cry out on Time that he may take away Your cold philosophies that give no hint Of spirit-quickened flesh; fall down and pray That Death come never with a face of flint: Death is our heritage; with Life we share The sunlight that must own his darkening hour: Within his very presence yet we dare […]
The Hawthorn Tree by Siegfried Sassoon
Not much to me is yonder lane Where I go every day; But when there’s been a shower of rain And hedge-birds whistle gay, I know my lad that’s out in France With fearsome things to see Would give his eyes for just one glance At our white hawthorn tree. . . . . Not […]
The Goldsmith by Siegfried Sassoon
‘This job’s the best I’ve done.’ He bent his head Over the golden vessel that he’d wrought. A bird was singing. But the craftsman’s thought Is a forgotten language, lost and dead. He sighed and stretch’d brown arms. His friend came in And stood beside him in the morning sun. The goldwork glitter’d…. ‘That’s the […]
The Fathers by Siegfried Sassoon
Snug at the club two fathers sat, Gross, goggle-eyed, and full of chat. One of them said: ‘My eldest lad Writes cheery letters from Bagdad. But Arthur’s getting all the fun At Arras with his nine-inch gun.’ ‘Yes,’ wheezed the other, ‘that’s the luck! My boy’s quite broken-hearted, stuck In England training all this year. […]
The Effect by Siegfried Sassoon
‘The effect of our bombardment was terrific. One man told me he had never seen so many dead before.’ —War Correspondent. ‘He’d never seen so many dead before.’ They sprawled in yellow daylight while he swore And gasped and lugged his everlasting load Of bombs along what once had been a road. ‘How peaceful are […]
The Dug-Out by Siegfried Sassoon
Why do you lie with your legs ungainly huddled, And one arm bent across your sullen, cold, Exhausted face? It hurts my heart to watch you, Deep-shadowed from the candle’s guttering gold; And you wonder why I shake you by the shoulder; Drowsy, you mumble and sigh and turn your head . . . . […]
The Dreamers by Siegfried Sassoon
Soldiers are citizens of death’s gray land, Drawing no dividend from time’s to-morrows. In the great hour of destiny they stand, Each with his feuds, and jealousies, and sorrows. Soldiers are sworn to action; they must win Some flaming, fatal climax with their lives. Soldiers are dreamers; when the guns begin They think of firelit […]
The Dream by Siegfried Sassoon
I Moonlight and dew-drenched blossom, and the scent Of summer gardens; these can bring you all Those dreams that in the starlit silence fall: Sweet songs are full of odours. While I went Last night in drizzling dusk along a lane, I passed a squalid farm; from byre and midden Came the rank smell that […]
The Death-Bed by Siegfried Sassoon
He drowsed and was aware of silence heaped Round him, unshaken as the steadfast walls; Aqueous like floating rays of amber light, Soaring and quivering in the wings of sleep. Silence and safety; and his mortal shore Lipped by the inward, moonless waves of death. Someone was holding water to his mouth. He swallowed, unresisting; […]
The Choral Union by Siegfried Sassoon
He staggered in from night and frost and fog And lampless streets: he’d guzzled like a hog And drunk till he was dazed. And now he came To hear—he couldn’t call to mind the name— But he’d been given a ticket for the show, And thought he’d (hiccup) chance his luck and go. The hall […]
Survivors by Siegfried Sassoon
No doubt they’ll soon get well; the shock and strain Have caused their stammering, disconnected talk. Of course they’re ‘longing to go out again,’— These boys with old, scared faces, learning to walk. They’ll soon forget their haunted nights; their cowed Subjection to the ghosts of friends who died,— Their dreams that drip with murder; […]
Suicide In The Trenches by Siegfried Sassoon
I knew a simple soldier boy Who grinned at life in empty joy, Slept soundly through the lonesome dark, And whistled early with the lark. In winter trenches, cowed and glum, With crumps and lice and lack of rum, He put a bullet through his brain. No one spoke of him again. You smug-faced crowds […]
Storm and Sunlight by Siegfried Sassoon
I In barns we crouch, and under stacks of straw, Harking the storm that rides a hurtling legion Up the arched sky, and speeds quick heels of panic With growling thunder loosed in fork and clap That echoes crashing thro’ the slumbrous vault. The whispering woodlands darken: vulture Gloom Stoops, menacing the skeltering flocks of […]
South Wind by Siegfried Sassoon
Where have you been, South Wind, this May-day morning,— With larks aloft, or skimming with the swallow, Or with blackbirds in a green, sun-glinted thicket? Oh, I heard you like a tyrant in the valley; Your ruffian haste shook the young, blossoming orchards; You clapped rude hands, hallooing round the chimney, And white your pennons […]
Song-Books of the War by Siegfried Sassoon
In fifty years, when peace outshines Remembrance of the battle lines, Adventurous lads will sigh and cast Proud looks upon the plundered past. On summer morn or winter’s night, Their hearts will kindle for the fight, Reading a snatch of soldier-song, Savage and jaunty, fierce and strong; And through the angry marching rhymes Of blind […]
Sick Leave by Siegfried Sassoon
When I’m asleep, dreaming and lulled and warm,— They come, the homeless ones, the noiseless dead. While the dim charging breakers of the storm Bellow and drone and rumble overhead, Out of the gloom they gather about my bed. They whisper to my heart; their thoughts are mine. ‘Why are you here with all your […]
Secret Music by Siegfried Sassoon
I keep such music in my brain No din this side of death can quell; Glory exulting over pain, And beauty, garlanded in hell. My dreaming spirit will not heed The roar of guns that would destroy My life that on the gloom can read Proud-surging melodies of joy. To the world’s end I went, […]
Remorse by Siegfried Sassoon
Lost in the swamp and welter of the pit, He flounders off the duck-boards; only he knows Each flash and spouting crash,–each instant lit When gloom reveals the streaming rain. He goes Heavily, blindly on. And, while he blunders, “Could anything be worse than this?”–he wonders, Remembering how he saw those Germans run, Screaming for […]
Reconciliation by Siegfried Sassoon
When you are standing at your hero’s grave, Or near some homeless village where he died, Remember, through your heart’s rekindling pride, The German soldiers who were loyal and brave. Men fought like brutes; and hideous things were done; And you have nourished hatred, harsh and blind. But in that Golgotha perhaps you’ll find The […]
Prelude to an Unwritten Masterpiece by Siegfried Sassoon
You like my bird-sung gardens: wings and flowers; Calm landscapes for emotion; star-lit lawns; And Youth against the sun-rise … ‘Not profound; ‘But such a haunting music in the sound: ‘Do it once more; it helps us to forget’. Last night I dreamt an old recurring scene— Some complex out of childhood; (sex, of course!) […]
Picture-Show by Siegfried Sassoon
And still they come and go: and this is all I know— That from the gloom I watch an endless picture-show, Where wild or listless faces flicker on their way, With glad or grievous hearts I’ll never understand Because Time spins so fast, and they’ve no time to stay Beyond the moment’s gesture of a […]
Noah by Siegfried Sassoon
When old Noah stared across the floods, Sky and water melted into one Looking-glass of shifting tides and sun. Mountain-tops were few: the ship was foul: All the morn old Noah marvelled greatly At this weltering world that shone so stately, Drowning deep the rivers and the plains. Through the stillness came a rippling breeze; […]
Nimrod in September by Siegfried Sassoon
When half the drowsy world’s a-bed And misty morning rises red, With jollity of horn and lusty cheer, Young Nimrod urges on his dwindling rout; Along the yellowing coverts we can hear His horse’s hoofs thud hither and about: In mulberry coat he rides and makes Huge clamour in the sultry brakes. ————— The End […]
Night-Piece by Siegfried Sassoon
Ye hooded witches, baleful shapes that moan, Quench your fantastic lanterns and be still; For now the moon through heaven sails alone, Shedding her peaceful rays from hill to hill. The faun from out his dim and secret place Draws nigh the darkling pool and from his dream Half-wakens, seeing there his sylvan face Reflected, […]
Night on the Convoy by Siegfried Sassoon
(ALEXANDRIA-MARSEILLES) Out in the blustering darkness, on the deck A gleam of stars looks down. Long blurs of black, The lean Destroyers, level with our track, Plunging and stealing, watch the perilous way Through backward racing seas and caverns of chill spray. One sentry by the davits, in the gloom Stands mute: the boat heaves […]
Morning-Land by Siegfried Sassoon
Old English songs, you bring to me A simple sweetness somewhat kin To birds that through the mystery Of earliest morn make tuneful din, While hamlet steeples sleepily At cock-crow chime out three and four, Till maids get up betime and go With faces like the red sun low Clattering about the dairy floor. ————— […]
Morning-Glory by Siegfried Sassoon
In this meadow starred with spring Shepherds kneel before their king. Mary throned, with dreaming eyes, Gowned in blue like rain-washed skies, Lifts her tiny son that he May behold their courtesy. And green-smocked children, awed and good, Bring him blossoms from the wood. Clear the sunlit steeples chime Mary’s coronation-time. Loud the happy children […]
Morning Express by Siegfried Sassoon
Along the wind-swept platform, pinched and white, The travellers stand in pools of wintry light, Offering themselves to morn’s long, slanting arrows. The train’s due; porters trundle laden barrows. The train steams in, volleying resplendent clouds Of sun-blown vapour. Hither and about, Scared people hurry, storming the doors in crowds. The officials seem to waken […]
Middle-Ages by Siegfried Sassoon
I heard a clash, and a cry, And a horseman fleeing the wood. The moon hid in a cloud. Deep in shadow I stood. ‘Ugly work!’ thought I, Holding my breath. ‘Men must be cruel and proud, ‘Jousting for death’. With gusty glimmering shone The moon; and the wind blew colder. A man went over […]
Memory by Siegfried Sassoon
When I was young my heart and head were light, And I was gay and feckless as a colt Out in the fields, with morning in the may, Wind on the grass, wings in the orchard bloom. O thrilling sweet, my joy, when life was free And all the paths led on from hawthorn-time Across […]