Siegfried Sassoon War Poems The Dug-Out Why do you lie with your legs ungainly huddled, And one arm bent across your sullen, cold, Exhausted face? It hurts my heart to watch you, Deep-shadowed from the candle's guttering gold; And you wonder why I shake you by the shoulder; Drowsy, you mumble and sigh and turn your head... You are too young to fall asleep for ever; And when you sleep you remind me of the dead.
Siegfried Sassoon War Poems Suicide in the Trenches 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.
Siegfried Sassoon War Poems Memory 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. O thrilling sweet, my joy, when life was free And all the paths led on from hawthorn-time Across the carolling meadows into June.
But now my heart is heavy-laden. I sit Burning my dreams away beside the fire: For death has made me wise and bitter and strong; And I am rich in all that I have lost. O starshine on the fields of long-ago, Bring me the darkness and the nightingale; Dim wealds of vanished summer, peace of home, And silence; and the faces of my friends.
Siegfried Sassoon War Poems Invocation Come down from heaven to meet me when my breath Chokes, and through drumming shafts of stifling death I stumble toward escape, to find the door Opening on morn where I may breathe once more Clear cock-crow airs across some valley dim With whispering trees. While dawn along the rim Of night’s horizon flows in lakes of fire, Come down from heaven’s bright hill, my song’s desire.
Belov’d and faithful, teach my soul to wake In glades deep-ranked with flowers that gleam and shake And flock your paths with wonder. In your gaze Show me the vanquished vigil of my days. Mute in that golden silence hung with green, Come down from heaven and bring me in your eyes Remembrance of all beauty that has been, And stillness from the pools of Paradise.
Siegfried Sassoon War Poems Together 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, And hounds have lost their fox, and horses tire, I know that he’ll be with me on my way Home through the darkness to the evening fire. He’s jumped each stile along the glistening lanes; His hand will be upon the mud-soaked reins; Hearing the saddle creak, He’ll wonder if the frost will come next week. I shall forget him in the morning light; And while we gallop on he will not speak: But at the stable-door he’ll say good-night.
Siegfried Sassoon War Poems Dead Musicians I From you, Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, The substance of my dreams took fire. You built cathedrals in my heart, And lit my pinnacled desire. You were the ardour and the bright Procession of my thoughts toward prayer. You were the wrath of storm, the light On distant citadels aflare.
II Great names, I cannot find you now In these loud years of youth that strives Through doom toward peace: upon my brow I wear a wreath of banished lives. You have no part with lads who fought And laughed and suffered at my side. Your fugues and symphonies have brought No memory of my friends who died.
III For when my brain is on their track, In slangy speech I call them back. With fox-trot tunes their ghosts I charm. ‘Another little drink won’t do us any harm.’ I think of rag-time; a bit of rag-time; And see their faces crowding round To the sound of the syncopated beat. They’ve got such jolly things to tell, Home from hell with a Blighty wound so neat... . . . . And so the song breaks off; and I’m alone. They’re dead ... For God’s sake stop that gramophone.
Siegfried Sassoon War Poems Autumn October's bellowing anger breaks and cleaves The bronzed battalions of the stricken wood In whose lament I hear a voice that grieves For battle’s fruitless harvest, and the feud Of outraged men. Their lives are like the leaves Scattered in flocks of ruin, tossed and blown Along the westering furnace flaring red. O martyred youth and manhood overthrown, The burden of your wrongs is on my head.
Siegfried Sassoon War Poems Glory of Women 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. O German mother dreaming by the fire, While you are knitting socks to send your son His face is trodden deeper in the mud.
Антеру де Кентал (1842-1891) Один! - но и к отшельнику в пустыне... Один! - но и к отшельнику в пустыне От Господа нисходит свет небесный; Рыбак в жестокий шторм в лодчонке тесной Средь волн о Божьей молит благостыне.
Один! - Но и забытый на чужбине Хранит воспоминаний дар чудесный; Надеждой жив он на скале отвесной, Рыдая горько ночью в горной сини.
Один! - Не тот, кто выстрадав немало, Еще привязан к жизни, столь жестокой, Желанием душа его согрета...
Но руки уронив, брести устало, Чужим в толпе скитаться одиноко - Оставленности подлинной примета...
Lawrence Durrell Feria: Nimes Feria; cloaked trigonometry of hooves The plane trees know, shiver with apprehension; They plead as the archons of the blue steel must These prayers, refining murder by a breath, Turn self-deception to an absolution — Two coloured pawns uniting in the rites of death.
Brocade still stiff with bloody hair he kneels While the mithraic sun sinks in a surf Of bloody bubbles; leads from the huge pizzle The holy urine smoking in the dust. He reels into a darkness which he dazzles.
Tall doors fall as the axes must, And the great sideboard of the bull is there, A landslide in the ordinary heart A feast for gods within a coat of hair, His thunder like a belfry and his roars The minotaur of man's perfected lust, His birth-pangs offered to the steel's applause.
(from "Caesars Vast Ghost: Aspects of Provence", 1990)
Lawrence Durrell What a mysterious business. Wound up one day like a clockwork toy Set down upon the dusty road I have walked ticking for so many years. While with the same sort of gait And fully wound up like me At times I meet other toys With the same sort of idea of being Tick tock, we nod stiffly as we pass. They do not seem as real to me as I do; We do not believe that one day it will end Somewhere on a mountain of rusting Automobiles in a rusty siding far from life. Pitted with age like a colander Part of the iron vegetation of tomorrow.