Siegfried Sassoon Quotes

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Lost in a blurred confusion of yells and groans...
Down, and down, and down, he sank and drowned,
Bleeding to death. The counter-attack had failed.

Siegfried Sassoon
Who will remember, passing through this Gate,
The unheroic Dead who fed the guns?
Who shall absolve the foulness of their fate, —
Those doomed, conscripted, unvictorious ones?
Crudely renewed, the Salient holds its own.
Paid are its dim defenders by this pomp;
Paid, with a pile of peace-complacent stone,
The armies who endured that sullen swamp.

Siegfried Sassoon
Who's this—alone with stone and sky? It's only my old dog and I— It's only him; it's only me; Alone with stone and grass and tree. What share we most—we two together? Smells, and awareness of the weather. What is it makes us more than dust? My trust in him; in me his trust.

Siegfried Sassoon
Here was the world's worst wound. And here with pride
'Their name liveth for evermore' 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
Oh yes, I know the way to heaven was easy. We found the little kingdom of our passion that all can share who walk the road of lovers. In wild and secret happiness we stumbled; and gods and demons clamoured in our senses.

Siegfried Sassoon
October's bellowing anger breakes 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 outrage 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
O fathering friend and scientist of good,
Who in solitude, one bygone summer's day,
And in the throes of bodily anguish, passed away
From dream and conflict and research-lit lands
Of ethnological learning, — even as you stood
Selfless and ardent, resolute and gay,
So in this hour, in strange survival stands
Your ghost, whom I am powerless to repay.

Siegfried Sassoon
Life for the majority of the population.
Is an unlovely struggle against unfair odds.
Culminating in a cheap funeral.

Siegfried Sassoon
Let no one ever, from henceforth say one word in any way countenancing war. It is dangerous even to speak of how here and there the individual may gain some hardship of soul by it. For war is hell, and those who institute it are criminals. Were there even anything to say for it, it should not be said; for its spiritual disasters far outweigh any of its advantages.

Siegfried Sassoon
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 of death.

Siegfried Sassoon
How innocent were these Trees, that in
Mist-green May, blown by a prospering breeze,
Stood garlanded and gay;
Who now in sundown glow
Of serious colour clad confront me with their show
As though resigned and sad,
Trees, who unwhispering stand umber, bronze, gold;
Pavilioning the land for one grown tired and old;
Elm, chestnut, aspen and pine, I am merged in you,
Who tell once more in tones of time,
Your foliaged farewell.

Siegfried Sassoon
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
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
Does it matter?—losing your sight?…
There's such splendid work for the blind;
And people will always be kind,
As you sit on the terrace remembering
And turning your face to the light.

Siegfried Sassoon
Everyone suddenly burst out singing;
And I was filled with such delight
As prisoned birds must find in freedom.

Siegfried Sassoon