Impression sketch
of 2nd Lieutenant Hamo Watts Sassoon, Royal Engineers - by Jamie. From an original image that can be seen at
: <https://livesofthefirstworldwar.org/lifestory/3904659> [Accessed: 1 March
2016]
Impression sketch
of Siegfried Sassoon
and David Thomas - by Jamie. From an original image that can be seen at : <http://www.ww1photos.com/TheGeneral.html>
[Accessed: 1 March 2016]
i
In normal peace
and seasonal joy,
When time comes
for winter to abate -
A fact across
common centuries,
Whereby all
mankind looks towards
Days of becalmed
spring - yet likely
For a soldier of
1916 might only come
Greet relief from
cold, wet and mud.
In cleansing of brighter,
lighter
Days amid drifts
of mild air - might
A glance back
over bleaker days
Find some relief
for any frontline
Trooper, seeking
retrospection -
By February's
leave Lieutenant
Siegfried Sassoon
contemplated.
An old year
classified as some
Other country, which
had seen
Friends bound in Cambridge
Companionship - while
most dull
Officer training, banished
spirits
Of half Moon
Street - Sassoon
Swapped gown for khaki
uniform.
In company of
brotherly comrades,
Lay undercurrents
of romantic
Notions, unbroken - yet Cambridge
Books gave no
wild experience;
When separation
finally loomed.
To bring final
leave, prior to some
November
embarkation for France.
Men always
departed and always
Casualty lists
arrived - mirrored
In dread of
telegrams for families,
Sassoon was to
find one entwine
His fingers - his
brother two years
Younger - he too had
fallen victim;
Hamo
Watts Sassoon aged 27.
Their early
closeness had faded,
As the two brothers
interests had
Grown apart - yet still came hurt
By a wound that perhaps
initially,
Not so serious -
Hamo Sassoon's
Unit had been
repairing wire, as
Some sniper's
bullet hit his leg.
28 October 1915,
found Hamo
Stuck; he held back need to call,
Not to give his position
to enemy.
Eventually Hamo
crawled away
And fell into the
trench - when
A dressing was
applied, Hamo
Was moved to a
clearing station.
The wound to his
leg was not
So simple - the
Turkish bullet
Had caused enough
damage
To require amputation
- While
Hamo made light
of this fact,
He died as the
wound turned
Septic - his body
buried at sea.
ii
Out of grief, Siegfried Sassoon
Felt relief when
the full troop
Train pulled out
of Victoria.
Now he had one
more debt
To pay, for his
brother Hamo.
18 November was
to find
His arrival at
Etaples camp.
As a commissioned
officer
With the Royal
Welch Fusiliers,
Second Lieutenant
Sassoon
Was posted to 1st
Battalion -
To join C Company
at Bethune,
Close to Le Hamel
- where
He worked for a few
months.
Down among
communication
Trenches, his 60
men were
To lug supplies,
from tramlines
Over marshes - a
distance
Lit by intrusive
flares, to reach
The sodden
trenches - where
In frost and mud they
dug more.
To keep a vow to
become a poet,
Sassoon’s time began
to alter
With baptisms of
experience -
First came
initial encounters with
Exalted salvation
- whereby dirt
Stained Christ
wearing a woollen,
Hat, cursed at being
stuck in mud.
Still an infant
officer that looked
To war's adulthood,
an injection
Of a stranger
wandered inside
To pause in C
Company’s mess -
A fellow officer
Robert Graves,
Who then spied a
book to bear
A title, neither
military or trash.
He met the
owner's scrawled,
Signature, S. Sassoon - they
Identified their
unity - as officers
Set to discuss
poetry till dusk.
Graves revealed
his collection
Over the Brazier, at which the
Other frowned at
such realism.
Common in ideals
and oddly
Germanic sounding
names
Von Ranke Greaves,
Siegfried
Sassoon Shared
suggestions -
Old soldier
Greaves advised
The man his style
would alter;
Still yet to dip
his nib in mud.
iii
In sudden
friendship the two
Poets took their
honeymoon
Onwards, without complicated
Marriage or future
signs for
Likely divorce -
as Sassoon
Was sent from
Flanders to
Picardy and Somme
valley.
Out of University
and safety,
Siegfried was to
find some
Escape to see
life’s fragility -
Facing inwards he
looked
Outwards, on a
road peopled by
Temporary human existence.
Picking out from
marching sullen
Faces, a man
clean-shaven
Amid the dirty
faces. He searched
Spirits of men -
another form,
A red haired
youth, whose sharp
Green eyes stared
into distance.
Seeing the
unavoidable path
That he would
likely follow -by
The fate of his
brother - ready
For the day of
mighty sleep,
Sassoon spent leisure
time
Riding horses behind
the lines -
Amid his own
silent thoughts.
If death could be liberation,
Life of poetry possessed
His spirit - with
the moments
Shared in ambitious
friends;
David Thomas and
Graves -
Whose writings
while real,
Had left him wanting
more.
Sassoon brooded
on desire.
Yearning to get
away from
Winter's bleak
dull drabness,
To open up colours
of spring -
Barely linking
victory to war,
He passed by woe
of slain men,
To prefer a
garden of colour.
All which could
only attract
Readers to his
unrealistic
Mood - that could
only satisfy
Temporary
disenchantment -
Past January into
February
Was duty as a
working officer,
To replenish frontline
needs.
Still hung want
of cynicism.
Brooding below
his surface
Sassoon penned
words
In opposition of
a bright title
In the pink - optimism dies,
As a soldier
questions, why?
iV
iV
In a surreal, weary
world, rode
The officer daily
to his office
Of communication
trenches -
Then back to a
commuter's
Village of civil
talk and lights -
Catching glimpses
of grim war.
Hanging between
two entities,
Sassoon felt he
faced a temporal
War - to be a
poet that still lacked
True experience -
to undergo
A further day in
February leave;
He was a man
crossing a bridge
That turned, to
never quite link.
With three months
war under
His belt, Siegfried
saw London
And home as not
quite right - in
Evenings on half
Moon Street,
A concert and
trip to Weileigh -
All seemed
somehow empty.
Relief came by return of March.
Relief came by return of March.
by Jamie Mann.
Roberts, J.S., 1999. Siegfried
Sassoon. Richard Cohen Books.
Ch. 4
Mann, J., 2016. 100 years Ago - Poems by Jamie Mann. [letter] (Personal
communication, 1 March 2016).
#WW1 #WW1centenary #WW1poem #GreatWar #WW1centenary #worldwarone
#worldwaroneremembered #WW1Poets
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