Siegfried Sassoon

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Sick Leave

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 watches ended?

   From Ypres to Frise we sought you in the Line.'

In bitter safety I awake, unfriended;

And while the dawn begins with slashing rain

I think of the Battalion in the mud.

'When are you going out to them again?

Are they not still your brothers through our blood?'

Banishment

I am banished from the patient men who fight.

They smote my heart to pity, built my pride.

Shoulder to aching shoulder, side by side,

They trudged away from life's broad wealds of light.

Their wrongs were mine; and ever in my sight

They went arrayed in honour. But they died, --

Not one by one: and mutinous I cried

To those who sent them out into the night.

The darkness tells how vainly I have striven

To free them from the pit where they must dwell

In outcast gloom convulsed and jagged and riven

By grappling guns. Love drove me to rebel.

Love drives me back to grope with them through hell;

And in their tortured eyes I stand forgiven.

Repression of War Experience

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 war,

When thoughts you've gagged all day come back to scare you;

And it's been proved that soldiers don't go mad

Unless they lose control of ugly toughts

That drive them out to jabber among the trees.

Now light your pipe; look, what a steady hand.

Draw a deep breath; stop thinking; count fifteen

And you're right as rain. . . .

           Why won't it rain? . . .

I wish there'd be a thunderstorm to-night,

With bucketsful of water to sluice the dark,

And make the roses hang their dripping heads.

Books; what a jolly company they are,

Standing so quiet and patient on their shelves,

Dressed in dim brown, and black, and white, and green,

And every kind of colour. Which will you read?

Come on; O do read something; they're so wise.

I tell you all the wisdom of the world

Is waiting for you on those shelves; and yet

You sit and gnaw your nails, and let your pipe out,

And listen to the silence: on the ceiling

There's one big, dizzy moth that bumps and flutters;

And in the breathless air outside the house

The garden waits for something that delays.

There must be crowds of ghosts among the trees, --

Not people killed in battle, -- they're in France, --

But horrible shapes in shrouds -- old men who died

Slow, natural deaths, -- old men with ugly souls,

Who wore their bodies out with nasty sins.

     *     *     *     *

You're quiet and peaceful, summering safe at home;

You'd never think there was a bloody war on! . . .

O yes, you would . . . why, you can hear the guns.

Hark! Thud, thud, thud, -- quite soft . . . they never cease --

Those whispering guns -- O Christ, I want to go out

And screech at them to stop -- I'm going crazy;

I'm going stark, staring mad because of the guns.

Does It Matter

Does it matter? -- losing your legs? . . .

For people will always be kind,

And you need not show that you mind

When the others come in after hunting

To gobble their muffins and eggs.

Does it matter? -- losing your sight? . . .

There's such splendid work for the blind;

And people will always be kind,

As you sit on the terrace remembering

And turning your face to the light.

Do they matter? -- those dreams from the pit? . . .

You can drink and forget and be glad,

And people won't say that you're mad;

For they'll know that you've fought for your country,

And no one will worry a bit.

Concert Party

They are gathering round . . .

Out of the twilight; over the grey-blue sand,

Shoals of low-jargoning men drift inward to the sound --

The jangle and throb of a piano . . . tum-ti-tum . . .

Drawn by a lamp, they come

Out of the glimmiering lines of their tents, over the shuffling sand.

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.

Jaded and gay, the ladies sing; and the chap in brown

Tilts his grey hat; jaunty and lean and pale,

He rattles the keys . . . Some actor-bloke from town . . .

God send you home; and then A long, long trail;

I hear you calling me; and Dixieland. . . .

Sing slowly . . . now the chorus . . . one by one

We hear them, drink them; till the concert's done.

Silent, I watch the shadowy mass of soldiers stand.

Silent, they drift away, over the glimmering sand.

Songbooks of the War

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 regret and haggard mirth,

They'll envy us the dazzling times

When sacrifice absolved our earth.

Some ancient man with silver locks

Will lift his weary head to say:

'War was a fiend who stopped our clocks

Although we met him grim and gay.'

And then he'll speak of Haig's last drive,

Marvelling that any came alive

Out of the shambles that men built

And smashed, to cleanse the world of guilt.

But the boys, with grin and sidelong glance,

Will think, 'Poor grandad's day is done.'

And dream of those who fought in France

And lived in time to share the fun.

The Portrait

I watch you, gazing at me from the wall,

And wonder how you'd match your dreams with mine,

If, mastering time's illusion, I could call

You back to share this quiet candle-shine.

For you were young, three hundred years ago;

And by your looks I guess that you were wise . . .

Come, whisper soft, and Death will never know

You've slipped away from those calm, painted eyes.

Strange is your voice . . . Poor ninny, dead so long,

And all your pride forgotten like your name.

'One April morn I heard a blackbird's song,

And joy was in my heart like leaves aflame.'

And so you died before your songs took wing;

While Andrew Marvell followed in your wake.

'Love thrilled me into music. I could sing

But for a moment, -- but for beauty's sake.

Who passes? There's a star-lit breeze that stirs

The glimmer of white lilies in the gloom.

Who speaks? Death has his silent messengers.

And there was more than silence in this room

While you were gazing at me from the wall

And wondering how you'd match your dreams with mine,

If, mastering time's illusion, you could call

Me back to share your vanished candle-shine.

Thrushes

Tossed on the glittering air they soar and skim,

Whose voices make the emptiness of light

A windy palace. Quaverying 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 thoughts return on tempest-baffled wing;

Who hears the cry of God in everything,

And storms the gate of nothingness for proof.

Everyone Sang

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.

Everyone's voice was suddenly lifted;

And beauty came like the setting sun;

My heart was shaken with tears; and horror

Drifted away . . . O, but Everyone

Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done.

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