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;

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

I’ve never ceased to curse the day I signed A seven years’ bargain for the Golden Fleece. ‘Twas a bad deal all round; and dear enough It cost me, what with my daft management,

Let my soul, a shining tree, Silver branches lift towards thee, Where on a hallowed winter’s night The clear-eyed angels may alight. And if there should be tempests in My spirit, let them surge

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

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

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.

‘Jack fell as he’d have wished,’ the Mother said, And folded up the letter that she’d read. ‘The Colonel writes so nicely.’ Something broke In the tired voice that quavered to a choke. She

Through darkness curves a spume of falling flares That flood the field with shallow, blanching light. The huddled sentry stares On gloom at war with white, And white receding slow, submerged in gloom. Guns

‘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

I was near the King that day. I saw him snatch And briskly scan the G. H. Q. dispatch. Thick-voiced, he read it out. (His face was grave.) ‘This officer advanced with the first

Leave not your bough, my slender song-bird sweet, But pipe me now your roundelay complete. Come, gentle breeze, and tarrying on your way, Whisper my trees what you have seen to-day. Stand, golden cloud,

This is To-day, a child in white and blue Running to meet me out of Night who stilled The ghost of Yester-eve; this is fair Morn The mother of To-morrow. And these clouds That

I Because the night was falling warm and still Upon a golden day at April’s end, I thought; I will go up the hill once more To find the face of him that I

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

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

He stood alone in some queer sunless place Where Armageddon ends. Perhaps he longed For days he might have lived; but his young face Gazed forth untroubled: and suddenly there thronged Round him the

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

I’d heard fool-heroes brag of where they’d been, With stories of the glories that they’d seen. But you, good simple soldier, seasoned well In woods and posts and crater-lines of hell, Who dodge remembered

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

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

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

Music of whispering trees Hushed by a broad-winged breeze Where shaken water gleams; And evening radiance falling With reedy bird-notes calling. O bear me safe through dark, you low-voiced streams. I have no need

Adam, a brown old vulture in the rain, Shivered below his wind-whipped olive-trees; Huddling sharp chin on scarred and scraggy knees, He moaned and mumbled to his darkening brain; ‘He was the grandest of

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

They know not the green leaves; In whose earth-haunting dream Dimly the forest heaves, And voiceless goes the stream. Strangely they seek a place In love’s night-memoried hall; Peering from face to face, Until

When I’m among a blaze of lights, With tawdry music and cigars And women dawdling through delights, And officers in cocktail bars, Sometimes I think of garden nights And elm trees nodding at the

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

He seemed so certain ‘all was going well’, As he discussed the glorious time he’d had While visiting the trenches. ‘One can tell You’ve gathered big impressions!’ grinned the lad Who’d been severely wounded

I love all things that pass: their briefness is Music that fades on transient silences. Winds, birds, and glittering leaves that flare and fall – They fling delight across the world; they call To

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

Now light the candles; one; two; there’s a moth; What silly beggars they are to blunder in And scorch their wings with glory, liquid flame – No, no, not that,-it’s bad to think of

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

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

They threw me from the gates: my matted hair Was dank with dungeon wetness; my spent frame O’erlaid with marish agues: everywhere Tortured by leaping pangs of frost and flame, So hideous was I

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

October’s bellowing anger breaks and cleaves The bronzed battalions of the stricken wood In whose lament I hear a voice that grieves For battle’s fruitless harvest, and the feud Of outraged men. Their lives

To these I turn, in these I trust; Brother Lead and Sister Steel. To his blind power I make appeal; I guard her beauty clean from rust. He spins and burns and loves the

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

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

The glorying forest shakes and swings with glancing Of boughs that dip and strain; young, slanting sprays Beckon and shift like lissom creatures dancing, While the blown beechwood streams with drifting rays. Rooted in

(To Robert Graves) I Here I’m sitting in the gloom Of my quiet attic room. France goes rolling all around, Fledged with forest May has crowned. And I puff my pipe, calm-hearted, Thinking how

Darkness: the rain sluiced down; the mire was deep; It was past twelve on a mid-winter night, When peaceful folk in beds lay snug asleep; There, with much work to do before the light,

In gold and grey, with fleering looks of sin, I watch them come; by two, by three, by four, Advancing slow, with loutings they begin Their woven measure, widening from the door; While music-men

(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

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

O beauty doomed and perfect for an hour, Leaping along the verge of death and night, You show me dauntless Youth that went to fight Four long years past, discovering pride and power. You

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

Where sunshine flecks the green, Through towering woods my way Goes winding all the day. Scant are the flowers that bloom Beneath the bosky screen And cage of golden gloom. Few are the birds

Shaken from sleep, and numbed and scarce awake, Out in the trench with three hours’ watch to take, I blunder through the splashing mirk; and then Hear the gruff muttering voices of the men

There stood a Poplar, tall and straight; The fair, round Moon, uprisen late, Made the long shadow on the grass A ghostly bridge ‘twixt heaven and me. But May, with slumbrous nights, must pass;

Dark clouds are smouldering into red While down the craters morning burns. The dying soldier shifts his head To watch the glory that returns; He lifts his fingers toward the skies Where holy brightness

Splashing along the boggy woods all day, And over brambled hedge and holding clay, I shall not think of him: But when the watery fields grow brown and dim, And hounds have lost their

We’d gained our first objective hours before While dawn broke like a face with blinking eyes, Pallid, unshaved and thirsty, blind with smoke. Things seemed all right at first. We held their line, With

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

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

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

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

Behold these jewelled, merchant Ancestors, Foregathered in some chancellery of death; Calm, provident, discreet, they stroke their beards And move their faces slowly in the gloom, And barter monstrous wealth with speech subdued, Lustreless

Voices moving about in the quiet house: Thud of feet and a muffled shutting of doors: Everyone yawning. Only the clocks are alert. Out in the night there’s autumn-smelling gloom Crowded with whispering trees;

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

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

‘Fall in, that awkward squad, and strike no more Attractive attitudes! Dress by the right! The luminous rich colours that you wore Have changed to hueless khaki in the night. Magic? What’s magic got

When Wisdom tells me that the world’s a speck Lost on the shoreless blue of God’s To-Day… I smile, and think, ‘For every man his way: The world’s my ship, and I’m alone on

Then a wind blew; And he who had forgot he moved Lonely amid the green and silver morning weather, Suddenly grew Aware of clouds and trees Gleaming and white and shafted, shaken together And

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

I never asked you to be perfect-did I?- Though often I’ve called you sweet, in the invasion Of mastering love. I never prayed that you Might stand, unsoiled, angelic and inhuman, Pointing the way

Young Croesus went to pay his call On Colonel Sawbones, Caxton Hall: And, though his wound was healed and mended, He hoped he’d get his leave extended. The waiting-room was dark and bare. He

Everyone suddenly burst out singing; And I was filled with such delight As prisoned birds must find in freedom, Winging wildly across the white Orchards and dark-green fields; on on and out of sight.

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;

When meadows are grey with the morn In the dusk of the woods it is night: The oak and the birch and the pine War with the glimmer of light. Dryads brown as the

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