Resources and reviews for Catholic English teachers and parents
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.
Aye, like this one:
ReplyDeleteA 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.