All Poems

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The Effect

© Siegfried Sassoon

The effect of our bombardment was terrific.
One man told me he had never seen so many dead before.
War Correspondent.

Grimly he thought of Abel, soft and fair
A lover with disaster in his face,
And scarlet blossom twisted in bright hair.
Afraid to fight; was murder more disgrace?
God always hated Cain He bowed his head
The gaunt wild man whose lovely sons were dead.

Morning Express

© Siegfried Sassoon

Along the wind-swept platform, pinched and white,
The travellers stand in pools of wintry light,
Offering themselves to morns long, slanting arrows.
The trains due; porters trundle laden barrows.

The Imperfect Lover

© Siegfried Sassoon

I never asked you to be perfectdid I?
Though often Ive called you sweet, in the invasion
Of mastering love. I never prayed that you
Might stand, unsoiled, angelic and inhuman,
Pointing the way toward Sainthood like a sign-post.

A Wanderer

© Siegfried Sassoon

Sometimes, returning down his breezy miles,
A snatch of wayward April he will bring,
Piping the daffodilly that beguiles
Foolhardy lovers in the surge of spring.
And then once more by lanes and field-path stiles
Up the green world he wanders like a king.

Noah

© Siegfried Sassoon

When old Noah stared across the floods,
Sky and water melted into one
Looking-glass of shifting tides and sun.

Together

© Siegfried Sassoon

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,

Bombardment

© Siegfried Sassoon

Four days the earth was rent and torn
By bursting steel,
The houses fell about us;
Three nights we dared not sleep,
Sweating, and listening for the imminent crash
Which meant our death.

Remorse

© 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

France

© Siegfried Sassoon

She triumphs, in the vivid green
Where sun and quivering foliage meet;
And in each soldiers heart serene;
When death stood near them they have seen
The radiant forests where her feet
Move on a breeze of silver sheen.

Dream-Forest

© Siegfried Sassoon

Where sunshine flecks the green,
Through towering woods my way
Goes winding all the day.

Storm and Sunlight

© Siegfried Sassoon

IIn 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

Song-Books of the War

© 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.

Fight to a Finish

© Siegfried Sassoon

The boys came back. Bands played and flags were flying,
And Yellow-Pressmen thronged the sunlit street
To cheer the soldiers whod refrained from dying,
And hear the music of returning feet.
Of all the thrills and ardours War has brought,
This moment is the finest. (So they thought.)

The Troops

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

Joy-Bells

Ring your sweet bells; but let them be farewells
To the green-vistad gladness of the past
That changed us into soldiers; swing your bells
To a joyful chime; but let it be the last.

At Daybreak

I listen for him through the rain,
And in the dusk of starless hours
I know that he will come again;
Loth was he ever to forsake me:
He comes with glimmering of flowers
And stir of music to awake me.

Ancestors

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,

October

Now do ye dream of Spring when greening shaws
Confer with the shrewd breezes, and of slopes
Flower-kirtled, and of April, virgin guest;
Days that ye love, despite their windy flaws,
Since they are woven with all joys and hopes
Whereof ye nevermore shall be possessed.

Miracles

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 ita 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 mustnt wake.)