“In the great hour of destiny they stand, Each with his feuds, his jealousies, his 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.”

Siegfried Sassoon (1886 to 1967)

Siegfried Loraine Sassoon, CBE MC, was an English poet and novelist, known for his antiwar poetry and for his fictionalised autobiographies, praised for their evocation of English country life.

Sassoon enlisted in World War I and was twice wounded seriously while serving as an officer in France. It was his antiwar poetry, such as The Old Huntsman (1917) and Counterattack (1918), and his public affirmation of pacifism, after he had won the Military Cross and was still in the army, that made him widely known.