Peace poems
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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
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.
The Last Meeting
© Siegfried Sassoon
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.
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.
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.
The Troops
© Siegfried Sassoon
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
© Siegfried Sassoon
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.
Miracles
© Siegfried Sassoon
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.)
Today
© Siegfried Sassoon
This is To-day, a child in white and blue
Running to meet me out of Night who stilled
The ghost of Yester-eve; this is fair Morn
The mother of To-morrow. And these clouds
To Any Dead Officer
© Siegfried Sassoon
Well, how are things in Heaven? I wish youd say,
Because Id like to know that youre all right.
Tell me, have you found everlasting day,
Or been sucked in by everlasting night?
Dead Musicians
© Siegfried Sassoon
. . . .
And so the song breaks off; and Im alone.
Theyre dead ... For Gods sake stop that gramophone.
Falling Asleep
© Siegfried Sassoon
Voices moving about in the quiet house:
Thud of feet and a muffled shutting of doors:
Everyone yawning. Only the clocks are alert.
Memory
© Siegfried Sassoon
When I was young my heart and head were light,
And I was gay and feckless as a colt
Out in the fields, with morning in the may,
Wind on the grass, wings in the orchard bloom.
The Redeemer
© Siegfried Sassoon
Darkness: the rain sluiced down; the mire was deep;
It was past twelve on a mid-winter night,
When peaceful folk in beds lay snug asleep;
There, with much work to do before the light,
Slumber-Song
© Siegfried Sassoon
Sleep; and my song shall build about your bed
A paradise of dimness. You shall feel
The folding of tired wings; and peace will dwell
Throned in your silence: and one hour shall hold
Aftermath
© Siegfried Sassoon
Do you remember the dark months you held the sector at Mametz--
The nights you watched and wired and dug and piled sandbags on parapets?
Do you remember the rats; and the stench
Of corpses rotting in front of the front-line trench--
And dawn coming, dirty-white, and chill with a hopeless rain?
Do you ever stop and ask, 'Is it all going to happen again?'
The Death-Bed
© Siegfried Sassoon
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.
Idyll
© Siegfried Sassoon
In the grey summer garden I shall find you
With day-break and the morning hills behind you.
There will be rain-wet roses; stir of wings;
And down the wood a thrush that wakes and sings.
Repression of War Experience
© Siegfried Sassoon
Now light the candles; one; two; theres a moth;
What silly beggars they are to blunder in
And scorch their wings with glory, liquid flame
No, no, not that,its bad to think of war,
