SUICIDE IN THE TRENCHES – Siegfried Sassoon

Posted on by Opher

I always found this one of Sassoon’s most powerful poems. So simple in structure with its rhyming couplets yet encapsulating the horror that drove a happy young man to take his own life.

SUICIDE IN THE TRENCHES

By Siegfried Sassoon

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.

9 thoughts on “SUICIDE IN THE TRENCHES – Siegfried Sassoon”

    1. It is not one that I was familiar with. It had an impact on me and I thought it was well read too. Just the right face and tone.

      2. It is amazing how resilient people are. You can get used to anything. But it drove them crazy. I don’t really think they recovered. We talk about post traumatic stress but I don’t think anyone understands the subtleties and enormity. All people living in war suffer from it.

  2. Wow… Whenever I run into someone in uniform here (we live right by Hill AFB) I always stop and shake their hand and thank them for their service (much to Arn’s great annoyance for some reason). But I would never have thought of that. Powerful poem.

  3. Haunting. Boys go to War, whether they want to or not, Men come back – far too many damaged whether physically or mentally. Yet, what would you say Opher we should not go to War, World War I was wrong I feel but World War II, what would you do stand by and let Hitler walk in.

    1. No. I do think some wars, very few, are justified. World War 2 and the battle against ISIS maybe. But all the others? No. Vietnam, Cambodia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, Syria…………… a whole bunch of wars fought for the wrong reasons.

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