The Useless Critic 2.0

I think it's been a good several years since I posted some poetry. The commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the end of World War One seems like a good time to start.  Here's one of the premier WWI poets - Siegfried Sassoon, who lived a pretty good long life after the end of the war. Dreamers BY  SIEGFRIED SASSOON Soldiers are citizens of death's grey land, Drawing no dividend from time's to-morrows.    In the great hour of destiny they stand, Each with his feuds, and jealousies, and sorrows.    Soldiers are sworn to action; they must win    Some flaming, fatal climax with their lives. Soldiers are dreamers; when the guns begin They think of firelit homes, clean beds and wives. I see them in foul dug-outs, gnawed by rats, And in the ruined trenches, lashed with rain,    Dreaming of things they did with balls and bats, And mocked by hopeless longing to regain  ...

"Dreamers"- Siegfried Sassoon Soldiers are citizens of death's grey land, Drawing no dividend from time's to-morrows.    In the great hour of destiny they stand, Each with his feuds, and jealousies, and sorrows.    Soldiers are sworn to action; they must win    Some flaming, fatal climax with their lives. Soldiers are dreamers; when the guns begin They think of firelit homes, clean beds and wives. I see them in foul dug-outs, gnawed by rats, And in the ruined trenches, lashed with rain,    Dreaming of things they did with balls and bats, And mocked by hopeless longing to regain    Bank-holidays, and picture shows, and spats, And going to the office in the train.

Siegfried Sassoon: "Butterflies" F RAIL  Travellers, deftly flickering over the flowers;   O living flowers against the heedless blue   Of summer days, what sends them dancing through   This fiery-blossom’d revel of the hours?      Theirs are the musing silences between          5 The enraptured crying of shrill birds that make   Heaven in the wood while summer dawns awake;   And theirs the faintest winds that hush the green.      And they are as my soul that wings its way   Out of the starlit dimness into morn:   10 And they are as my tremulous being—born   To know but this, the phantom glare of day. :(