(1886 - 1967 / Kent / England)

poet Siegfried Sassoon
#99 on top 500 poets

Quotations

  • ''But the past is just the same,—and War's a bloody game. . . .
    Have you forgotten yet? . . .
    Look down, and swear by the slain of the War that you'll never
    forget.''
    Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967), British poet. Aftermath (l. 7-9). . . Modern British Poetry. Louis Untermeyer, ed. (7th rev. ed., 1962) Harcourt, Brace and Company.
    146 person liked.
    		59 person did not like.
  • ''Do you remember the stretcher-cases lurching back
    With dying eyes and lolling heads, those ashen-gray
    Masks of the lads who once were keen and kind and gay?''
    Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967), British poet. Aftermath (l. l9-21). . . Modern British Poetry. Louis Untermeyer, ed. (7th rev. ed., 1962) Harcourt, Brace and Company.
    92 person liked.
    		63 person did not like.
  • ''And when the war is done and youth stone dead,
    I'd toddle safely home and die—in bed.''
    Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967), British poet. Base Details (l. 9-10). . . Oxford Book of Short Poems, The. P. J. Kavanagh and James Michie, eds. Oxford University Press.
    94 person liked.
    		44 person did not like.
  • ''If I were fierce, and bald, and short of breath,
    I'd live with scarlet Majors at the Base,
    And speed glum heroes up the line to death,''
    Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967), British poet. Base Details (l. 1-3). . . Oxford Book of Short Poems, The. P. J. Kavanagh and James Michie, eds. Oxford University Press.
    81 person liked.
    		45 person did not like.
  • ''And there'd be no more jokes in Music-halls
    To mock the riddled corpses round Bapaume.''
    Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967), British poet. Blighters (l. 7-8). . . Oxford Book of Short Poems, The. P. J. Kavanagh and James Michie, eds. Oxford University Press.
    8 person liked.
    		5 person did not like.
  • ''Soldiers are citizens of death's grey land,
    Drawing no dividend from time's to-morrows.''
    Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967), British poet. Dreamers (l. 1-2). . . Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry, The. Richard Ellmann and Robert O'Clair, eds. (2d ed., 1988) W. W. Norton & Company.
    7 person liked.
    		7 person did not like.
  • ''mocked by hopeless longing to regain
    Bank-holidays, and picture shows, and spats,
    And going to the office in the train.''
    Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967), British poet. Dreamers (l. 12-14). . . Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry, The. Richard Ellmann and Robert O'Clair, eds. (2d ed., 1988) W. W. Norton & Company.
    7 person liked.
    		5 person did not like.
  • ''Soldiers are citizens of death's grey land.
    ...
    Soldiers are sworn to action; they must win
    Some flaming, fatal climax with their lives.
    Soldiers are dreamers; when the guns begin
    They think of firelit homes, clean beds and wives.''
    Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967), British poet. "Dreamers," st. 1, Counter-Attack and Other Poems (1918).
    6 person liked.
    		8 person did not like.
  • ''O, but Everyone
    Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be
    done.''
    Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967), British poet. Everyone Sang (l. 9-10). . . Oxford Book of Short Poems, The. P. J. Kavanagh and James Michie, eds. Oxford University Press.
    10 person liked.
    		4 person did not like.
  • ''"Their name liveth for ever," the Gateway claims.
    Was ever an immolation so belied
    As these intolerably nameless names?
    Well might the Dead who struggled in the slime
    Rise and deride this sepulchre of crime.''
    Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967), British poet. On Passing the New Menin Gate (l. 11-15). . . Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry, The. Richard Ellmann and Robert O'Clair, eds. (2d ed., 1988) W. W. Norton & Company.
    11 person liked.
    		4 person did not like.

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Concert Party

(EGYPTIAN BASE CAMP)


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 glimmering lines of their tents, over the shuffling sand.

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