Tag: Siegfried Sassoon

Siegfried Sassoon: Sketch (2) 2023

~ Meg ~ 19 Comments

One of my favorite War Poets, Siegfried Sassoon at first an enthusiastic soldier, soon became disillusioned with the horror and futility of the fighting on the Western Front. His younger brother Hamo died in 1915 at Gallipoli and this loss no doubt profoundly contributed to his change of heart. Here is my portrait of Siegfried Sassoon and his poem: Glory of Women, written in 1917. It is a response to the way women (and the civilian public in general) wish their men to go off to the war and be heroes.

The Glory Of Women by Siegfried Sassoon

You love us when we’re heroes, home on leave,
Or wounded in a mentionable place.
You worship decorations; you believe
That chivalry redeems the war’s disgrace.
You make us shells. You listen with delight,
By tales of dirt and danger fondly thrilled.
You crown our distant ardours while we fight,
And mourn our laurelled memories when we’re killed.
You can’t believe that British troops ‘retire’
When hell’s last horror breaks them, and they run,
Trampling the terrible corpses—blind with blood.

Oh German mother dreaming by the fire,
While you are knitting socks to send your son
His face is trodden deeper in the mud.

The Kiss – Siegfried Sassoon

~ Meg ~ 32 Comments

This poem is by Siegfried Sassoon is from the collection Men Who March Away, edited by I.M. Parsons some fifty years after World War I. I have in my possession a biography of Sassoon which is climbing close to the top of my to-read pile, so watch for more about that fascinating War Poet. Meanwhile, here is one of his poems and a little background. In his introduction to the collection, Parsons writes about The Kiss:

“The Sassoon poem is particularly interesting, not only for its technical accomplishment and for the terrifying image in the final line, but because in spirit it is so completely alien to the author’s whole attitude to war. For that reason, Mr. Sassoon was understandably reluctant to let me reprint it, fearing that it might be taken as meant seriously –as a ‘fire-eating’ poem.”

Sassoon himself said, “I originally wrote it as a sort of exercise … After being disgusted by the babarities of the famous bayonet-fighting lecture. To this day I don’t know what made me write it, for I never felt I could have stuck a bayonet into anyone, even in self defense. The difficulty is that it doesn’t show any sign of satire.”

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 glimmers naked, cold and fair.

Sweet Sister, grant your soldier this:
That in good fury he may feel
The body where he set his heel
Quail from your downward, darting kiss.

The Great War Through the Eyes of a Poet

~ Meg ~ 29 Comments

I’ve been perusing my collection of World War One era poetry. I’m sorry to be morbid, bear with me…. I’ll snap out of it, I promise…

Suicide In the Trenches – Siegfried Sassoon

I Knew a simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.

In winter trenches, cowed and glum,
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.

You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you’ll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.

100 years have passed since The Great War, World War One. We pay so much more attention to the Second War. Because the villains were more evil? Maybe… but this war, the one that changed the way wars were fought, was surely the work of evil come to earth.