Fancy Dress

Siegfried Sassoon 1886 (Matfield) – 1967 (Heytesbury)



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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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

22 sec read
128

Quick analysis:

Scheme AABABBCCDDEE
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 462
Words 76
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 12

Siegfried Sassoon

Siegfried Loraine Sassoon, CBE, MC was an eminent English poet, writer, and soldier. Decorated for bravery on the Western Front, he became one of the leading poets of the First World War. His poetry both described the horrors of the trenches, and satirised the patriotic pretensions of those who, in Sassoon's view, were responsible for a jingoism-fuelled war. He later won acclaim for his prose work, notably his three-volume fictionalised autobiography, collectively known as the "Sherston trilogy". more…

All Siegfried Sassoon poems | Siegfried Sassoon Books

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