Uploaded September 2014 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Heres a virtual movie of the great WW1 soldier poet Siegfried Sassoon reading one of his finest poems "The Kiss". The kiss being in this case The kiss of death by bullet.This poem comes from his collection of poems "The Old Huntsman and Other Poems" published in 1918."the poem calls a bullet "brother lead" and the bayonet as" sister steel ".
Siegried Sassoon English poet and novelist. An officer in World War I, he expressed his conviction of the brutality and waste of war in grim, forceful, realistic verseâ€"The Old Huntsman (1917), Counter-Attack (1918), Satirical Poems (1926), Vigils (1935), Sequences (1957), and others.
Sassoon was born to a wealthy family. His father was Jewish, with relations who were prominent in English society, politics, and business; his mother, a gentile, also hailed from an affluent background. Sassoon grew up on a country estate in Kent, enjoying fox hunting, cricket, and other pastimes of the well-to-do. He studied law and history at Marlborough College and Clare College, Cambridge, but never took a degree. While a student, he began to write poetry, and he published a number of private editions of his verse prior to the beginning of World War I. Sassoon enlisted in the British army in August 1914, three days before England declared war on the Central Powers. After training as an infantry officer, he arrived in France in November 1915 and took part in fighting on the Western Front.
Although his war poetry attacks the brutality and destruction of war, Sassoon earned a reputation as a courageous fighter. Nicknamed "Mad Jack" by his fellow soldiers, he was awarded the Military Cross for his battlefield exploits and was considered for another medal after he single-handedly captured a German trench position. He was wounded and disabled several times, and while recuperating in England, he came in contact with individuals who were active in the antiwar movement. In 1917 Sassoon publicly protested against the continuation of the conflict; he threw his Military Cross into a river and wrote a letter to his commanding officer that was, as he put it, a "wilful defiance of military authority." The letter was published.
newspapers and read in the British House of Commons, and for a time it seemed that Sassoon would be courtmartialed for his actions. Instead, a medical board concluded that Sassoon's protest was the result of shell shock—a finding that may have saved him from a prison term. Consequently, Sassoon was sent to the Craiglockhart Military Hospital in Scotland, where he met Wilfred Owen. Owen's work, like Sassoon's, would become synonymous with World War I, and Sassoon furthered the younger poet's exposure by editing a volume of his work after Owen was killed in the final week of the war. Once he was released from Craiglockhart, Sassoon saw two more tours of battlefield duty in 1918 before another bullet wound sent him back to England to recover.
Following the war, Sassoon continued to produce poetry, but he received significant attention for his prose. He produced a trilogy of novels featuring George Sherston, a character who, like Sassoon, comes from a wealthy background and serves as an infantry officer during the war. In addition, Sassoon wrote three autobiographical volumes that directly comment on his experiences. After marrying and fathering one son, Sassoon lived quietly on his Wiltshire country estate in the final decades of his life. He died there in 1967, at the age of eighty.
Kind Regards
Jim Clark
All rights are reserved on this video recording copyright Jim Clark 20011
The Kiss.....
To these I turn, in these I trust;
Brother Lead and Sister Steel.
To his blind power I make appeal;
I guard her beauty clean from rust.
He spins and burns and loves the air,
And splits a skull to win my praise;
But up the noble marching days
She glitters naked, cold and fair.
Sweet Sister, grant your soldier this;
That in good fury he may feel
The body where he sets his heel
Quail from your downward darting kiss.
Heres a virtual movie of the great WW1 soldier poet Siegfried Sassoon reading one of his finest poems "The Kiss". The kiss being in this case The kiss of death by bullet.This poem comes from his collection of poems "The Old Huntsman and Other Poems" published in 1918."the poem calls a bullet "brother lead" and the bayonet as" sister steel ".
Siegried Sassoon English poet and novelist. An officer in World War I, he expressed his conviction of the brutality and waste of war in grim, forceful, realistic verseâ€"The Old Huntsman (1917), Counter-Attack (1918), Satirical Poems (1926), Vigils (1935), Sequences (1957), and others.
Sassoon was born to a wealthy family. His father was Jewish, with relations who were prominent in English society, politics, and business; his mother, a gentile, also hailed from an affluent background. Sassoon grew up on a country estate in Kent, enjoying fox hunting, cricket, and other pastimes of the well-to-do. He studied law and history at Marlborough College and Clare College, Cambridge, but never took a degree. While a student, he began to write poetry, and he published a number of private editions of his verse prior to the beginning of World War I. Sassoon enlisted in the British army in August 1914, three days before England declared war on the Central Powers. After training as an infantry officer, he arrived in France in November 1915 and took part in fighting on the Western Front.
Although his war poetry attacks the brutality and destruction of war, Sassoon earned a reputation as a courageous fighter. Nicknamed "Mad Jack" by his fellow soldiers, he was awarded the Military Cross for his battlefield exploits and was considered for another medal after he single-handedly captured a German trench position. He was wounded and disabled several times, and while recuperating in England, he came in contact with individuals who were active in the antiwar movement. In 1917 Sassoon publicly protested against the continuation of the conflict; he threw his Military Cross into a river and wrote a letter to his commanding officer that was, as he put it, a "wilful defiance of military authority." The letter was published.
newspapers and read in the British House of Commons, and for a time it seemed that Sassoon would be courtmartialed for his actions. Instead, a medical board concluded that Sassoon's protest was the result of shell shock—a finding that may have saved him from a prison term. Consequently, Sassoon was sent to the Craiglockhart Military Hospital in Scotland, where he met Wilfred Owen. Owen's work, like Sassoon's, would become synonymous with World War I, and Sassoon furthered the younger poet's exposure by editing a volume of his work after Owen was killed in the final week of the war. Once he was released from Craiglockhart, Sassoon saw two more tours of battlefield duty in 1918 before another bullet wound sent him back to England to recover.
Following the war, Sassoon continued to produce poetry, but he received significant attention for his prose. He produced a trilogy of novels featuring George Sherston, a character who, like Sassoon, comes from a wealthy background and serves as an infantry officer during the war. In addition, Sassoon wrote three autobiographical volumes that directly comment on his experiences. After marrying and fathering one son, Sassoon lived quietly on his Wiltshire country estate in the final decades of his life. He died there in 1967, at the age of eighty.
Kind Regards
Jim Clark
All rights are reserved on this video recording copyright Jim Clark 20011
The Kiss.....
To these I turn, in these I trust;
Brother Lead and Sister Steel.
To his blind power I make appeal;
I guard her beauty clean from rust.
He spins and burns and loves the air,
And splits a skull to win my praise;
But up the noble marching days
She glitters naked, cold and fair.
Sweet Sister, grant your soldier this;
That in good fury he may feel
The body where he sets his heel
Quail from your downward darting kiss.
