How To Die
Dark clouds are smouldering into red While down the craters morning burns. The dying soldier shifts his head To watch the glory that returns; He lifts his fingers toward the skies Where holy brightness breaks in flame; Radiance reflected in his eyes, And on his lips a whispered name. You’d think, to hear some people talk, That lads go West with sobs and curses, And sullen faces white as chalk, Hankering for wreaths and tombs and hearses. But they’ve been taught the way to do it Like Christian soldiers; not with haste And shuddering groans; but passing through it With due regard for decent taste.
Siegfried Sassoon
Other author posts
Survivors
No doubt they’ll soon get well; the shock and strain Have caused their stammering, disconnected talk Of course they’re ‘longing to go out again,’— These boys with old, scared faces, learning to walk They’ll soon forget their haunted nigh...
Dreamers
Soldiers are citizens of death's gray 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
Repression Of War Experience
Now light the candles; one; two; there’s a moth; What silly beggars they are to blunder in And scorch their wings with glory, liquid flame— No, no, not that,—it’s bad to think of war, When thoughts you’ve gagged all day come back to scare you;<br ...
The Redeemer
Darkness: the rain sluiced down; the mire was deep; It was past twelve on a mid-winter night, When peaceful folk in beds lay snug asleep; There, with much work to do before the light,