Feature Article

A poem from WW1

Suicide in the Trenches
By Siegfreid Sasson

I knew a simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.

In winter trenches cowed and glum,
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain,
No one spoke of him again.

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 and laughter go.

English poet and novelist Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967) was an officer in World War I. He expressed his conviction of the brutality and waste of war in grim and forceful verse, including this poem, first published in 1918 in Counter-Attack and Other Poems. New York: E.P. Dutton & Company.
Reprinted with permission of Bartleby.com, Inc.