Quote #10

Who will remember, passing through this Gate, The unheroic Dead who fed the guns? Who shall absolve the foulness of their fate, - Those doomed, conscripted, unvictorious ones? Crudely renewed, the Salient holds its own. Paid are its dim defenders by this pomp; Paid, with a pile of peace-complacent stone, The armies who endured that sullen swamp.

More from Siegfried Sassoon

  1. You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye Who cheer when soldier lads march by, Sneak home and pray you'll never know The hell where youth an…
  2. Here was the world's worst wound. And here with pride 'Their name liveth for evermore' the Gateway claims. Was ever an immolation so belied…
  3. I'd say - 'I used to know his father well; Yes, we've lost heavily in this last scrap.' And when the war is done and youth stone dead I'd t…
  4. What voice revisits me this night? What face To my heart's room returns? From the perpetual silence where the grace Of human sainthood burn…
  5. If I were fierce, and bald, and short of breath, I'd live with scarlet Majors at the Base, And speed glum heroes up the line of death.
  6. O fathering friend and scientist of good, Who in solitude, one bygone summer's day, And in the throes of bodily anguish, passed away From d…
  7. Deep in my morning time he made his mark And still he comes uncalled to be my guide In devastated regions When the brain has lost its beari…
  8. Soldiers are dreamers; when the guns begin They think of firelit homes, clean beds, and wives.

All Siegfried Sassoon quotes