Heres a virtual movie of the great WW1 soldier poet Siegfried Sassoon reading one of his exquisite poems "Middle Ages". This short memorable poem juxtaposes the eternal tragedy of war in the middle ages with the war that had just taken place in the early 20th century when this poem was written in 1919.

Siegried Sassoon was an English poet and novelist. An officer in World War I, he expressed his disgust of the brutality and waste of war in grim, forceful, realistic verse—The Old Huntsman (1917), Counter-Attack (1918), Satirical Poems (1926), Vigils (1935), Sequences (1957), and others.

Siegfried Loraine Sassoon, CBE, MC (8 September 1886 1 September 1967) was an English poet and author. He became known as a writer of satirical anti-war verse during World War I. He later won acclaim for his prose work.



Kind Regards

Jim Clark
All rights are reserved on this video recording copyright Jim Clark 2009

Middle-ages..........

I heard a clash, and a cry,
And a horseman fleeing the wood.
The moon hid in a cloud.
Deep in shadow I stood.
Ugly work! thought I,
Holding my breath.
Men must be cruel and proud,
Jousting for death.

With gusty glimmering shone
The moon; and the wind blew colder.
A man went over the hill,
Bent to his horses shoulder.
Time for me to be gone...
Darkly I fled.
Owls in the wood were shrill,
And the moon sank red. (less info)