Siegfried Sassoon

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A Letter Home

(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 the fighting started,

Wondering when we'll ever end it,

Back to hell with Kaiser sent it,

Gag the noise, pack up and go,

Clockwork soldiers in a row.

I've got better things to do

Than to waste my time on you.

     II

Robert, when I drowse to-night,

Skirting lawns of sleep to chase

Shifting dreams in mazy light,

Somewhere then I'll see your face

Turning back to bid me follow

Where I wag my arms and hollo,

Over hedges hasting after

Crooked smile and baffling laughter,

Running tireless, floating, leaping,

Down your web-hung woods and valleys,

Where the glowworm stars are peeping,

Till I find you, quiet as stone

On a hill-top all alone,

Staring outward, gravely pondering

Jumbled leagues of hillock-wandering.

     III

You and I have walked together

In the starving winter weather.

We've been glad because we knew

Time's too short and friends are few.

We've been sad because we missed

One whose yellow head was kissed

By the gods, who thought about him

Till they couldn't do without him.

Now he's here again; I've been

Soldier David dressed in green,

Standing in a wood that swings

To the madrigal he sings.

He's come back, all mirth and glory,

Like the prince in a fairy tory.

Winter called him far away;

Blossoms bring him home with May.

     IV

Well, I know you'll swear it's true

That you found him decked in blue

Striding up through morning-land

With a cloud on either hand.

Out in Wales, you'll say, he marches

Arm-in-arm with aoks and larches;

Hides all night in hilly nooks,

Laughs at dawn in tumbling brooks.

Yet, it's certain, here he teaches

Outpost-schemes to groups of beeches.

And I'm sure, as here I stand,

That he shines through every land,

That he sings in every place

Where we're thinking of his face.

     V

Robert, there's a war in France;

Everywhere men bang and blunder,

Sweat and swear and worship Chance,

Creep and blink through cannon thunder.

Rifles crack and bullets flick,

Sing and hum like hornet-swarms.

Bones are smashed and buried quick.

Yet, through stunning battle storms,

All the while I watch the spark

Lit to guide me; for I know

Dreams will triumph, though the dark

Scowls above me where I go.

You can hear me; you can mingle

Radiant folly with my jingle.

War's a joke for me and you

While we know such dreams are true!

The Kiss

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 air,

And splits a skull to win my praise;

But up the nobly marching days

She glitters naked, cold and fair.

Sweet Sister, grant your soldier this;

That in good fury he may feel

The body where he sets his heel

Quail from your downward darting kiss.

The Dragon and the Undying

All night the flares go up; the Dragon sings

And beats upon the dark with furious wings;

And, stung to rage by his own darting fires,

Reaches with grappling coils from town to town;

He lusts to break the loveliness of spires,

And hurls their martyred music toppling down.

Yet, though the slain are homeless as the breeze,

Vocal are they, like storm-bewilder'd seas.

Their faces are the fair, unshrouded night,

And planets are their eyes, their ageless dreams.

Tenderly stooping earthward from their height,

They wander in the dusk with chanting streams;

And they are dawn-lit trees, with arms up-flung,

To hail the burning heavens they left unsung.

To Victory

Return to greet me, colours that were my joy,

Not in the woeful crimson of men slain,

But shining as a garden; come with the streaming

Banners of dawn and sundown after rain.

I want to fill my gaze with blue and silver,

Radiance through living roses, spires of green

Rising in young-limbed copse and lovely wood,

Where the hueless wind passes and cries unseen.

I am not sad; only I long for lustre, --

Tired of the greys and browns and the leafless ash.

I would have hours that move like a glitter of dancers

Far from the angry guns that boom and flash.

Return, musical, gay with blossom and fleetness,

Days when my sight shall be clear and my heart rejoice;

Come from the sea with breadth of approaching brightness,

When the blithe wind laughs on the hills with uplifted voice.

'They'

The Bishop tells us: 'When the boys come back

They will not be the same; for they'll have fought

In a just cause: they lead the last attack

On Anti-Christ; their comrades' blood has bought

New right to breed an honourable race.

They have challenged Death and dared him face to face.'

' We're none of us the same! ' the boys reply.

For George lost both his legs; and Bill's stone blind;

Poor Jim's shot through the lungs and like to die;

And Bert's gone syphilitic; you'll not find

A chap who's served that hasn't found some change. '

And the Bishop siad: ' The ways of God are strange! '

'In the Pink'

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 the year would mend.

He couldn't sleep that night. Stiff in the dark

He groaned and thought of Sundays at the farm,

When he'd go out as cheerful as a lark

In his best suit to wander arm-in-arm

With brown-eyed Gwen, and whisper in her ear

The simple, silly things she liked to hear.

And then he thought: to-morrow night we trudge

Up to the trenches, and my boots are rotten.

Five miles of stodgy clay and freezing sludge,

And everything but wretchedness forgotten.

To-night he's in the pink; but soon he'll die.

And still the war goes on; he don't know why.

Haunted

Evening was in the wood, louring with storm.

A time of drought had sucked the weedy pool

And baked the channels; birds had done with song.

Thirst was a dream of fountains in the moon,

Or willow-music blown across the water

Leisurely sliding on by weir and mill.

Uneasy was the man who wandered, brooding,

His face a little whiter than the dusk.

A drone of sultry wings flicker'd in his head.

The end of sunset burning thro' the boughs

Died in a smear of red; exhausted hours

Cumber'd, and ugly sorrows hemmed him in.

He thought: ' Somewhere there's thunder,' as he strove

To shake off dread; he dared not look behind him,

But stood, the sweat of horror on his face.

He blundered down a path, trampling on thistles,

In sudden race to leave the ghostly trees.

And: ' Soon I'll be in open fields, ' he thought,

And half remembered starlight on the meadows,

Scent of mown grass and voices of tired men,

Fading along the field-paths; home and sleep

And cool-swept upland spaces, whispering leaves,

And far off the long churring night-jar's note.

But something in the wood, trying to daunt him,

Led him confused in circles through the brake.

He was forgetting his old wretched folly,

And freedom was his need; his throat was choking;

Barbed brambles gripped and clawed him round his legs,

And he floundered over snags and hidden stumps,

Mumbling: ' I will get out! I must get out! '

Butting and thrusting up the baffling gloom,

Pausing to listen in a space 'twixt thorns,

He peers around with boding, frantic eyes.

An evil creature in the twilight looping

Flapped blindly in his face. Beating it off,

He screeched in terror, and straightway something clambered

Heavily from an oak, and dropped, bent double,

To shamble at him zigzag, squat and bestial.

Headlong he charges down the wood, and falls

WIth roaring brain -- agony -- the snapt spark --

And blots of green and purple in his eyes.

Then the slow fingers groping on his neck,

And at his heart he strangling clasp of death.

The Death-Bed

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.

Some one was holding water to his mouth.

He swallowed, unresisting; moaned and dropped

Through crimson gloom to darkness; and forgot

The opiate throb and ache that was his wound.

Water -- calm, sliding green above the weir;

Water -- a sky-lit alley for his boat,

Bird-voiced, and bordered with reflected flowers

And shaken hues of summer: drifting down,

He dipped contented oars, and sighed, and slept.

Night, with a gust of wind, was in the ward,

Blowing the curtain to a glimmering curve.

Night. He was blind; he could not see the stars

Glinting among the wraiths of wandering cloud;

Queer blots of colour, purple, scarlet, green,

Flickered and faded in his drowning eyes.

Rain; he could hear it rustling through the dark

Fragrance and passionless music woven as one;

Warm rain on drooping roses; pattering showers

That soak the woods; not the harsh rain that sweeps

Behind the thunder, but a trickling peace

Gently and slowly washing life away.

        *      *      *      *      *

He stirred, shifting his body; then the pain

Leaped like a prowling beast, and gripped and tore

His groping dreams with grinding claws and fangs.

But some one was beside him; soon he lay

Shuddering because that evil thing had passed.

And Death, who'd stepped toward him, paused and stared.

Light many lamps and gather round his bed.

Lend him your eyes, warm blood, and will to live.

Speak to him; rouse him; you may save him yet.

He's young; he hated war; how should he die

When cruel old campaigners win safe through?

But Death replied: ' I choose him. ' So he went,

And there was silence in the summer night;

Silence and safety; and the veils of sleep.

Then, far away, the thunder of the guns.

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