Siegfried Sassoon Short Quotes

21 Sourced Quotes

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The song was wordless; the singing will never be done.

Siegfried Sassoon
Man, it seemed, had been created to jab the life out of Germans.

Siegfried Sassoon
The visionless officialized fatuity
That once kept Europe safe for Perpetuity.

Siegfried Sassoon
I didn't want to die - not before I'd finished reading The Return of the Native anyhow.

Siegfried Sassoon
You are too young to fall asleep for ever;
And when you sleep you remind me of the dead.

Siegfried Sassoon
And the wind upon its way whispered the boughs of May, And touched the nodding peony flowers to bid them waken.

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

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

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

Siegfried Sassoon
Let my soul, a shining tree, Silver branches lift towards thee, Where on a hallowed winter's night The clear-eyed angels may alight.

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
And it's been proved that soldiers don't go mad
Unless they lose control of ugly thoughts
That drive them out to jabber among the trees.

Siegfried Sassoon
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
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
In 1917 I was only beginning to learn that life, for the majority of the population, is an unlovely struggle against unfair odds, culminating in a cheap funeral.

Siegfried Sassoon
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
Soldiers are citizens of death's grey land,
Drawing no dividend from time's tomorrows.
In the great hour of destiny they stand,
Each with his feuds, and jealousies, and sorrows.

Siegfried Sassoon
I'd say — "I used to know his father well;
Yes, we've lost heavily in this last scrap."
And when the war is done and youth stone dead
I'd toddle safely home and die — in bed.

Siegfried Sassoon
I'd like to see a Tank come down the stalls,
Lurching to rag-time tunes, or 'Home, sweet Home',—
And there'd be no more jokes in Music-halls
To mock the riddled corpses round Bapaume.

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