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 Dark House by Siegfried Sassoon
Dusk in the rain-soaked garden, And dark the house within. A door creaked: someone was early To watch the dawn begin. But he stole away like a thief In the chilly, star-bright air: Though the house was shuttered for slumber, He had left one wakeful there. Nothing moved in the garden. Never a bird would […]
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 […]
Stretcher Case by Siegfried Sassoon
He woke; the clank and racket of the train Kept time with angry throbbings in his brain. Then for a while he lapsed and drowsed again. At last he lifted his bewildered eyes And blinked, and rolled them sidelong; hills and skies, Heavily wooded, hot with August haze, And, slipping backward, golden for his gaze, […]
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 […]
Stand-To: Good Friday Morning by Siegfried Sassoon
I’d been on duty from two till four. I went and stared at the dug-out door. Down in the frowst I heard them snore. ‘Stand to!’ Somebody grunted and swore. Dawn was misty; the skies were still; Larks were singing, discordant, shrill; They seemed happy; but I felt ill. Deep in water I splashed my […]
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 […]
Slumber-Song by Siegfried Sassoon
Sleep; and my song shall build about your bed A paradise of dimness. You shall feel The folding of tired wings; and peace will dwell Throned in your silence: and one hour shall hold Summer, and midnight, and immensity Lulled to forgetfulness. For, where you dream, The stately gloom of foliage shall embower Your slumbering […]
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 […]
Parted by Siegfried Sassoon
Sleepless I listen to the surge and drone And drifting roar of the town’s undertone; Till through quiet falling rain I hear the bells Tolling and chiming their brief tune that tells Day’s midnight end. And from the day that’s over No flashes of delight I can recover; But only dreary winter streets, and faces […]
October by Siegfried Sassoon
Across the land a faint blue veil of mist Seems hung; the woods wear yet arrayment sober Till frost shall make them flame; silent and whist The drooping cherry orchards of October Like mournful pennons hang their shrivelling leaves Russet and orange: all things now decay; Long since ye garnered in your autumn sheaves, And […]
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 […]
Miracles by Siegfried Sassoon
I dreamt I saw a huge grey boat in silence steaming Down a canal; it drew the dizzy landscape after; The solemn world was sucked along with it—a streaming Land-slide of loveliness. O, but I rocked with laughter, Staring, and clinging to my tree-top. For a lake Of gleaming peace swept on behind. (I mustn’t […]
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 […]
Memorial Tablet by Siegfried Sassoon
Squire nagged and bullied till I went to fight, (Under Lord Derby’s Scheme). I died in hell— (They called it Passchendaele). My wound was slight, And I was hobbling back; and then a shell Burst slick upon the duck-boards: so I fell Into the bottomless mud, and lost the light. At sermon-time, while Squire is […]
Lovers by Siegfried Sassoon
You were glad to-night: and now you’ve gone away. Flushed in the dark, you put your dreams to bed; But as you fall asleep I hear you say Those tired sweet drowsy words we left unsaid. Sleep well: for I can follow you, to bless And lull your distant beauty where you roam; And with […]
Limitations by Siegfried Sassoon
If you could crowd them into forty lines! Yes; you can do it, once you get a start; All that you want is waiting in your head, For long-ago you’ve learnt it off by heart. . . . . Begin: your mind’s the room where you have slept, (Don’t pause for rhymes), till twilight woke […]
Lamentations by Siegfried Sassoon
I found him in the guard-room at the Base. From the blind darkness I had heard his crying And blundered in. With puzzled, patient face A sergeant watched him; it was no good trying To stop it; for he howled and beat his chest. And, all because his brother had gone west, Raved at the […]
Joy-Bells by Siegfried Sassoon
Ring your sweet bells; but let them be farewells To the green-vista’d gladness of the past That changed us into soldiers; swing your bells To a joyful chime; but let it be the last. What means this metal in windy belfries hung When guns are all our need? Dissolve these bells Whose tones are tuned […]
Invocation by Siegfried Sassoon
Come down from heaven to meet me when my breath Chokes, and through drumming shafts of stifling death I stumble toward escape, to find the door Opening on morn where I may breathe once more Clear cock-crow airs across some valley dim With whispering trees. While dawn along the rim Of night’s horizon flows in […]
‘In the Pink’ by Siegfried Sassoon
So Davies wrote: ‘ This leaves me in the pink. ‘ Then scrawled his name: ‘ Your loving sweetheart Willie ‘ With crosses for a hug. He’d had a drink Of rum and tea; and, though the barn was chilly, For once his blood ram warm; he had pay to spend, Winter was passing; soon […]
In Me, Past, Present, Future meet by Siegfried Sassoon
In me, past, present, future meet To hold long chiding conference. My lusts usurp the present tense And strangle Reason in his seat. My loves leap through the future’s fence To dance with dream-enfranchised feet. In me the cave-man clasps the seer, And garlanded Apollo goes Chanting to Abraham’s deaf ear. In me the tiger […]
In Barracks by Siegfried Sassoon
The barrack-square, washed clean with rain, Shines wet and wintry-grey and cold. Young Fusiliers, strong-legged and bold, March and wheel and march again. The sun looks over the barrack gate, Warm and white with glaring shine, To watch the soldiers of the Line That life has hired to fight with fate. Fall out: the long […]
Idyll by Siegfried Sassoon
In the grey summer garden I shall find you With day-break and the morning hills behind you. There will be rain-wet roses; stir of wings; And down the wood a thrush that wakes and sings. Not from the past you’ll come, but from that deep Where beauty murmurs to the soul asleep: And I shall […]
I Stood With the Dead by Siegfried Sassoon
I Stood with the Dead, so forsaken and still: When dawn was grey I stood with the Dead. And my slow heart said, ‘You must kill, you must kill: ‘Soldier, soldier, morning is red’. On the shapes of the slain in their crumpled disgrace I stared for a while through the thin cold rain… ‘O […]