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Siegfried Sassoon

Fancy Dress

Some Brave, awake in you to—night,
Knocked at your heart: an eagle’s flight
Stirred in the feather on your head.
Your wide—set Indian eyes, alight
Above high cheek—bones smeared with red,
Unveiled cragg’d centuries, and led
You, the snared wraith of bygone things—
Wild ancestries of trackless Kings—
Out of the past ... So men have felt
Strange anger move them as they knelt
Praying to gods serenely starred
In heavens where tomahawks are barred.

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Other works by Siegfried Sassoon...
Wraiths

They know not the green leaves; In whose earth—haunting dream Dimly the forest heaves, And voiceless goes the stream. Strangely they seek a place
The Triumph

When life was a cobweb of stars fo… In the whisper of leaves or a bird… On dawn—lit hills and horizons gir… I sought for the triumph that trou… With death in the terrible flicker…
At the Cenotaph

I saw the Prince of Darkness, wit… Standing bare-headed by the Cenot… Unostentatious and respectful, the… He stood, and offered up the follo… ‘Make them forget, O Lord, what t…
Middle-Ages

I heard a clash, and a cry, And a horseman fleeing the wood. The moon hid in a cloud. Deep in shadow I stood. ‘Ugly work!’ thought I,
The Portrait

I watch you, gazing at me from the… And wonder how you’d match your dr… If, mastering time’s illusion, I… You back to share this quiet candl… For you were young, three hundred…
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Suicide in the Trenches

I knew a simple soldier boy Who grinned at life in empty joy, Slept soundly through the lonesome… And whistled early with the lark. In winter trenches, cowed and glum…
Sick Leave

When I’m asleep, dreaming and lul… They come, the homeless ones, the… While the dim charging breakers of… Bellow and drone and rumble overhe… Out of the gloom they gather about…
Attack

AT dawn the ridge emerges massed… In the wild purple of the glow’rin… Smouldering through spouts of drif… The menacing scarred slope; and, o… Tanks creep and topple forward to…
Man and Dog

Who’s this—alone with stone and sk… It’s only my old dog and I— It’s only him; it’s only me; Alone with stone and grass and tre… What share we most—we two together…
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Before Day

Come in this hour to set my spirit… When earth is no more mine though… And stretching forth these arms I… Lord of winged sunrise and dim Ar… When fieldward boys far off with c…
The Rear-Guard

Groping along the tunnel, step by… He winked his prying torch with pa… From side to side, and sniffed the… Tins, boxes, bottles, shapes too v… A mirror smashed, the mattress fro…
A Mystic as Soldier

I lived my days apart, Dreaming fair songs for God; By the glory in my heart Covered and crowned and shod. Now God is in the strife,
Elegy

Your dextrous wit will haunt us lo… Wounding our grief with yesterday. Your laughter is a broken song; And death has found you, kind and… We may forget those transient thin…
Sporting Acquaintances

I watched old squatting Chimpanze… His painful patterns in the dirt:… Red—haired Ourang—utang, whimsica… Chewing a sportsman’s meditative s… I’d met them years ago, and half—f…
A Child's Prayer

For Morn, my dome of blue, For Meadows, green and gay, And Birds who love the twilight o… Let Jesus keep me joyful when I p… For the big Bees that hum



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