Sassoon's public protest may have been smothered, but his poems, with their shock tactics, bitter irony, and masterly use of direct speech (learned from Thomas Hardy), continued to attack the old men of the army, Church, and government, whom he held responsible for the miseries and murder of the young. His poems satirically play on contrasts between the romanticization of war and the grim realities. They angrily flaunt the grisly effects of violence: in 'The Rear-Guard' a corpse is 'a soft unanswering heap' whose 'fists of fingers clutched a blackening wound.'
Sassoon returned to the Western Front in 1918, was wounded again, and was again sent home. An increasingly reclusive country gentleman, he continued to write poetry, but his style never regained the satiric pungency of the war poems that made him famous. His 1933 marriage failed because of his homosexuality; and after he became a Roman Catholic in 1957, he wrote mainly devotional poems.
'They'
The Bishop tells us: 'When the boys come back
They will not be the same; for they'll have fought
In a just cause: they lead the last attack
On Anti-Christ; their comrades' blood has bought
5 New right to breed an honourable race,
They have challenged Death and dared him face to face.'
'We're none of us the same!' the boys reply.
'For George lost both his legs; and Bill's stone blind;
Poor Jim's shot through the lungs and like to die;
iu And Bert's gone syphilitic: you'll not find
.
SASSOON: THE GENERAL / 1961
A chap who's served that hasn't found some change.' And the Bishop said: 'The ways of God are strange!'
Oct. 31, 1916 1917
The Rear-Guard
(Hindenburg Line, April 1917)'
Groping along the tunnel, step by step, He winked his prying torch with patching glare From side to side, and sniffed the unwholesome air. Tins, boxes, bottles, shapes too vague to know;
5 A mirror smashed, the mattress from a bed; And he, exploring fifty feet below The rosy gloom of battle overhead.
Tripping, he grabbed the wall; saw some one lie Humped at his feet, half-hidden by a rug,
10 And stooped to give the sleeper's arm a tug. 'I'm looking for headquarters.' No reply. 'God blast your neck!' (For days he'd had no sleep) 'Get up and guide me through this stinking place.' Savage, he kicked a soft unanswering heap,
15 And flashed his beam across the livid face Terribly glaring up, whose eyes yet wore Agony dying hard ten days before; And fists of fingers clutched a blackening wound.
Alone he staggered on until he found
20 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,
25 Unloading hell behind him step by step.
Apr. 22, 1917 1918
The General
'Good-morning; good-morning!' the General said When we met him last week on our way to the line. Now the soldiers he smiled at are most of 'em dead, And we're cursing his staff for incompetent swine.
!. In 1916 Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg sive 'line' named after him. Its barbed-wire entan( 1847?1934) became commander in chief of the glements, deep trenches, and gun emplacements German armies and, for a time, blocked the Allied ran from Lens to Rheims. advance in western France with the massive defen
.
1962 / VOICES FROM WORLD WAR 1
s 'He's a cheery old card,' grunted Harry to Jack As they slogged up to Arras1 with rifle and pack.
But he did for them both by his plan of attack.
Apr. 1917 1918
Glory of Women
You love us when we're heroes, home on leave, Or wounded in a mentionable place. You worship decorations; you believe That chivalry redeems the war's disgrace.
5 You make us shells.1 You listen with delight. By tales of dirt and danger fondly thrilled. You crown our distant ardours while we fight, And mourn our laurelled2 memories when we're killed. You can't believe that British
