Saturday, 6 November 2010

Siegfried Sassoon


This picture shows Sassoon as he is usually remembered but it's worth also remembering that he lived for many years after World War I and that he became a Catholic in his last years, as discussed in this podcast from Downside and this one from the same conference. It's very difficult to get hold of his last (Catholic) poems but now might well be a good time to resurrect them.

1 comment:

  1. Aye, like this one:

    A Prayer in Old Age

    Bring no expectance of a heaven unearned
    No hunger for beatitude to be
    Until the lesson of my life is learned
    Through what Thou didst for me.

    Bring no assurance of redeemed rest
    No intimation of awarded grace
    Only contrition, cleavingly confessed
    To Thy forgiving face.

    I ask one world of everlasting loss
    In all I am, that other world to win.
    My nothingness must kneel below Thy Cross.
    There let new life begin.

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