All Poems

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Night on the Convoy

© Siegfried Sassoon

We are going home. The troop-ship, in a thrill
Of fiery-chamberd anguish, throbs and rolls.
We are going home ... victims ... three thousand souls.

To his cold lips he sets the pipe to blow
Some drowsy note that charms the listening air:
The dryads from their trees come down and creep
Near to his side; monotonous and low,
He plays and plays till at the woodside there
Stirs to the voice of everlasting sleep.

South Wind

© 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?

The Investiture

© Siegfried Sassoon

If I were there wed snowball Death with skulls;
Or ride away to hunt in Devils Wood
With ghosts of puppies that we walked of old.
But youre alone; and solitude annuls
Our earthly jokes; and strangely wise and good
You roam forlorn along the streets of gold.

Concert Party

© Siegfried Sassoon

O sing us the songs, the songs of our own land,
You warbling ladies in white.
Dimness conceals the hunger in our faces,
This wall of faces risen out of the night,
These eyes that keep their memories of the places
So long beyond their sight.

Conscripts

© Siegfried Sassoon

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? Whats magic got to do with you?
Theres no such thing! Bloods red, and skies are blue.

Fancy Dress

© Siegfried Sassoon

Some Brave, awake in you to-night,
Knocked at your heart: an eagles flight
Stirred in the feather on your head.
Your wide-set Indian eyes, alight

Parted

© Siegfried Sassoon

Sleepless I listen to the surge and drone
And drifting roar of the towns undertone;
Till through quiet falling rain I hear the bells
Tolling and chiming their brief tune that tells

Break of Day

© Siegfried Sassoon

There seemed a smell of autumn in the air
At the bleak end of night; he shivered there
In a dank, musty dug-out where he lay,
Legs wrapped in sand-bags,lumps of chalk and clay

Vision

© Siegfried Sassoon

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

Their Frailty

© Siegfried Sassoon

He's got a Blighty wound. Hes safe; and then
Wars fine and bold and bright.
She can forget the doomed and prisoned men
Who agonize and fight.

A Subaltern

© Siegfried Sassoon

But as he stamped and shivered in the rain,
My stale philosophies had served him well;
Dreaming about his girl had sent his brain
Blanker than evershed no place in Hell....
Good God! he laughed, and slowly filled his pipe,
Wondering why he always talked such tripe.

The Hawthorn Tree

© Siegfried Sassoon

. . . .
Not much to me is yonder lane
Where he so longs to tread:
But when theres been a shower of rain
I think Ill never weep again
Until Ive heard hes dead.

Golgotha

© Siegfried Sassoon

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,

Companions

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, until my song be done,
(For hes too proud) before the face of the sun. So one did sing, and the other breathed a story;

The Dream

I cannot hear their voices, but I see
Dim candles in the barn: they gulp their tea,
And soon theyll sleep like logs. Ten miles away
The battle winks and thuds in blundering strife.
And I must lead them nearer, day by day,
To the foul beast of war that bludgeons life.

The Dark House

Dusk in the rain-soaked garden,
And dark the house within.
A door creaked: someone was early
To watch the dawn begin.

Dryads

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.

The Last Meeting

Because the night was falling warm and still
Upon a golden day at Aprils end,
I thought; I will go up the hill once more
To find the face of him that I have lost,
And speak with him before his ghost has flown
Far from the earth that might not keep him long.

Tree and Sky

Let my soul, a shining tree,
Silver branches lift towards thee,
Where on a hallowed winters night
The clear-eyed angels may alight.