Siegfried Sassoon
There seemed a smell of autumn in the air
At the bleak end of night; he shivered there
In a dank, musty dug-out where he lay,
Legs wrapped in sand-bags,—lumps of chalk and clay
Spattering his face. Dry-mouthed, he thought, ‘To-day
We start the damned attack; and, Lord knows why,
Zero’s at nine; how bloody if I’m done in
Under the freedom of that morning sky!’
And then he coughed and dozed, cursing the din.
Was it the ghost of autumn in that smell
Of underground, or God’s blank heart grown kind,
That sent a happy dream to him in hell?—
Where men are crushed like clods, and crawl to find
Some crater for their wretchedness; who lie
In outcast immolation, doomed to die
Far from clean things or any hope of cheer,
Cowed anger in their eyes, till darkness brims
And roars into their heads, and they can hear
Old childish talk, and tags of foolish hymns.
He sniffs the chilly air; (his dreaming starts),
He’s riding in a dusty Sussex lane
In quiet September; slowly night departs;
And he’s a living soul, absolved from pain.
Beyond the brambled fences where he goes
Are glimmering fields with harvest piled in sheaves,
And tree-tops dark against the stars grown pale;
Then, clear and shrill, a distant farm-cock crows;
And there’s a wall of mist along the vale
Where willows shake their watery-sounding leaves,
He gazes on it all, and scarce believes
That earth is telling its old peaceful tale;
He thanks the blessed world that he was born…
Then, far away, a lonely note of the horn.
They’re drawing the Big Wood! Unlatch the gate,
And set Golumpus going on the grass;
He knows the corner where it’s best to wait
And hear the crashing woodland chorus pass;
The corner where old foxes make their track
To the Long Spinney; that’s the place to be.
The bracken shakes below an ivied tree,
And then a cub looks out; and ‘Tally-o-back!’
He bawls, and swings his thong with volleying crack,—
All the clean thrill of autumn in his blood,
And hunting surging through him like a flood
In joyous welcome from the untroubled past;
While the war drifts away, forgotten at last.
Now a red, sleepy sun above the rim
Of twilight stares along the quiet weald,
And the kind, simple country shines revealed
In solitudes of peace, no longer dim.
The old horse lifts his face and thanks the light,
Then stretches down his head to crop the green.
All things that he has loved are in his sight;
The places where his happiness has been
Are in his eyes, his heart, and they are good.
. . . .
Hark! there’s the horn: they’re drawing the Big Wood.
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Analysis (AI Assisted)
This poem presents a soldier’s poignant and surreal reflection on the harshness of war, juxtaposed with fleeting memories of a peaceful, pre-war life. The imagery and tone reveal a struggle between the brutal present of trench warfare and the distant, idyllic world the soldier dreams of, a world of rural English life, autumn hunting, and a simpler existence. The blending of these realities—life in the trenches and the peaceful memories of home—creates an emotional tension that underscores the disillusionment and longing the soldier feels.
The opening stanzas set the scene in a dugout, with the soldier anticipating the upcoming attack. The first few lines introduce a sense of foreboding with “the smell of autumn in the air,” a smell that conjures mixed feelings of dread and nostalgia. This autumnal imagery is ironic in a war context—it represents life and peace, yet it comes to the soldier in the midst of death and destruction. The line “Zero’s at nine; how bloody if I’m done in / Under the freedom of that morning sky!” highlights the soldier’s fatalism, as he knows the upcoming battle is inevitable, and he reflects bitterly on the idea of dying under an open sky, an image of freedom that contrasts sharply with his current, grim situation in the dugout.
As the soldier dreams in his “hell,” there is a shift in tone and space. The description of his dream world, “riding in a dusty Sussex lane,” introduces a haunting and nostalgic vision of England. The dream is vividly pastoral: “glimmering fields with harvest piled in sheaves,” “tree-tops dark against the stars grown pale,” and the distant sound of a farm-cock crowing. This idyllic scene is sharply at odds with the nightmare of trench warfare, and yet it is deeply rooted in the soldier’s mind. The use of sensory details here, from the “chilly air” to the distant “horn,” paints a world far removed from the war he is living, an escape to a simpler, more peaceful time when he was “a living soul, absolved from pain.”
In the second half of the dream, the soldier recalls memories of hunting—another powerful image of pre-war life. The reference to “Golumpus” and the fox-hunting scene ties into an older, rural England, filled with joyful abandon and an untroubled connection to nature. The shift in the soldier’s experience—from the “bracken shakes” and the hunt, to the “clean thrill of autumn in his blood”—shows the intensity with which he clings to these memories. It’s as if, in this moment, the war “drifts away” completely, replaced by the pure joy of being in the countryside, where the world felt full of life and adventure. The war, in these moments of remembering, recedes, and the soldier is temporarily “forgotten” by its demands.
However, this escape is fleeting. As the dream fades, the war begins to return in the soldier’s consciousness. The mention of “the horn” signals the end of this peaceful reverie and the return to reality. The “Big Wood” metaphorically recalls the soldier’s deeper understanding of the war and its cyclical nature. The “horn” is both a literal sound from the hunt and a symbolic sound that calls him back from his dream, reminding him that, no matter how deeply he retreats into his memories, the war is always there, calling him back to the front.
The poem ends with a paradox: while the soldier is in a trance of peace and escape, the war still haunts his subconscious. The imagery of the peaceful country life, in all its beauty and simplicity, reveals the profound cost of war—the way it uproots lives, makes memories of joy feel distant, and creates an inescapable rift between who the soldier was and who he has become.
The juxtaposition of idyllic, peaceful imagery with the horrors of war forms the emotional core of the poem. The soldier’s fleeting dreams of a simpler life are in stark contrast to the desolation and brutality he endures in the trenches. His longing for the peaceful past and the stark reminder of what has been lost reflects the tragic impact of war on the individual spirit. The war, and the soldier’s place in it, becomes inescapable, and even in his dreams, it haunts him.
In summary, the poem explores the intersection of memory, longing, and the harsh reality of war. The soldier’s brief escape into the nostalgia of autumn and hunting in rural England serves as a metaphor for the fleeting moments of peace and sanity that one can grasp in the chaos of war. But even in these moments of escape, war’s persistent call is ever-present, as symbolized by the return of the “horn” and the haunting reminder that the soldier’s peace will always be temporary, overshadowed by the reality of his duty.