Quotes from Siegfried Sassoon

When Dick was killed last week he looked like that, Flapping along the fire-step like a fish, After the blazing crump had knocked him flat…. "How many dead? As many as ever you wish. Don't count 'em; they're too many. Who'll buy my nice fresh corpses, two a penny?

All this, I suspect, has been little more than the operation known as the pilgrimage from the cradle to the grave, but I have had a comfortable feeling that, however ordinary my enterprises may have been, they had at any rate the advantage of containing, for me, an element of sustained unfamiliarity. I am one of those persons who begin life by exclaiming they've "never seen anything like this before" and die in the hope that they may say the same of heaven.

54. At Daybreak I LISTEN for him through the rain, And in the dusk of starless hours I know that he will come again; Loth was he ever to forsake me: He comes with glimmering of flowers 5 And stir of music to awake me. Spirit of purity, he stands As once he lived in charm and grace: I may not hold him with my hands, Nor bid him stay to heal my sorrow; 10 Only his fair, unshadowed face Abides with me until to-morrow.

We were carrying something in our heads which belonged to us alone, and to those we had left behind us in the battle.

Sitting here I glance over my right shoulder at the little row of books, red and green and blue, which stand waiting for my hand, offering their accumulated riches. I think of the years that may be in store for me, and of all the pages I may turn.

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

Winged lovely moments, can I call you home?

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

In bitter safety I awake, unfriended; And while the dawn begins with slashing rain I think of the Battalion in the mud. 'When are you going out to them again? Are they not still your brothers through our blood?

To him, as to me, the War was inevitable and justifiable. Courage remained a virtue. And that exploitation of courage, if I may be allowed to say a thing so obvious, was the essential tragedy of the War, which, as everyone now agrees, was a crime against humanity.

Alone he staggered on until he found Dawn's ghost that filtered down a shafted stair To the dazed, muttering creatures underground Who hear the boom of shells in muffled sound. At last, with sweat of horror in his hair, He climbed through darkness to the twilight air, Unloading hell behind him step by step.

As regards being dead, however, one of my main consolations has always been that I have the strongest intention of being an extremely active ghost. Let nobody make any mistake about that.

In war-time the word patriotism means suppression of truth.

Five minutes ago I heard a sniper fire: Why did he do it?… Starlight overhead— Blank stars. I'm wide-awake; and some chap's dead.

The art of poetry belongs to life; one lives for it just as other people live for their essential vocations of whatever kind they may be. It is one's earthly home, and the other poets, dead or living, when masters of the art, are one's housemates.

Let no one ever from henceforth say a 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.

The purgatory I'd let myself in for always came between me and the pages; there was no escape for me now.

But death replied: "I choose him." So he went, And there was silence in the summer night; Silence and safety; and the veils of sleep. Then, far away, the thudding of the guns.

Vision" I love all things that pass: their briefness is Music that fades on transient silences. Winds, birds, and glittering leaves that flare and fall— They fling delight across the world; they call To rhythmic-flashing limbs that rove and race… A moment in the dawn for Youth's lit face; A moment's passion, closing on the cry— 'O Beauty, born of lovely things that die!

I did not dread the dark winter as people do when they have lost their youth and live alone in some great city. ? Siegfried Sassoon, Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man (Andesite Press, August 8, 2015)

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.

He's a cheery old card", grunted Harry to Jack As they slogged up to Arras with rifle and pack. But he did for them both by his plan of attack. (The General)

None of us could know how insignificant we were...

Light many lamps and gather round his bed. Lend him your eyes, warm blood, and will to live. Speak to him; rouse him; you may save him yet. He's young; he hated war; how should he die When cruel old campaigners win safe through? But death replied: "I choose him." So he went, And there was silence in the summer night; Silence and safety; and the veils of sleep. Then, far away, the thudding of the guns.