On this day in 1886 Siegfried Sassoon was born.

Siegfried. That’s a name you don’t hear much anymore. From that infallible source:

Siegfried Loraine Sassoon, CBE, MC (8 September 1886 – 1 September 1967) was an English poet, writer, and soldier. Decorated for bravery on the Western Front,^[1] he became one of the leading poets of the First World War. His poetry both described the horrors of the trenches and satirised the patriotic pretensions of those who, in Sassoon’s view, were responsible for a jingoism-fuelled war.^[2] Sassoon became a focal point for dissent within the armed forces when he made a lone protest against the continuation of the war in his “Soldier’s Declaration” of 1917, culminating in his admission to a military psychiatric hospital; this resulted in his forming a friendship with Wilfred Owen, who was greatly influenced by him. Sassoon later won acclaim for his prose work, notably his three-volume fictionalised autobiography, collectively known as the “Sherston trilogy“.

Jingoism. That’s a word you don’t hear much anymore.

So Sieg was 39 when the 1925 edition of the GDR was published. According to that infallible source, he gallivanted around after he relinquished his commission (captain, 1919). It wasn’t until 1928 that he published his fictionalize autobiography which was a big hit. So it seems his inclusion in the GDR is based on his war poetry. As I commented yesterday, the editors of GDR made some curious choices. Not that old Seig doesn’t have a slim claim to fame today (see TIS, “Legacy”), but curious in 1925.

Daily Reading

• Wordsworth’s Lucy
• Hart-Leap Well
• Sassoon’s Dreamers

Who? The identity of Lucy is a mystery. You can read more about it– the “Lucy Poems” has its own entry at that infallible source. Here’s the first of the five.

STRANGE fits of passion have I known:
And I will dare to tell,
But in the lover's ear alone,
What once to me befell.
 
When she I loved look'd every day
Fresh as a rose in June,
I to her cottage bent my way,
Beneath an evening moon.
 
Upon the moon I fix'd my eye,
All over the wide lea;
With quickening pace my horse drew nigh
Those paths so dear to me.
 
And now we reach'd the orchard-plot;
And, as we climb'd the hill,
The sinking moon to Lucy's cot
Came near and nearer still.
 
In one of those sweet dreams I slept,
Kind Nature's gentlest boon!
And all the while my eyes I kept
On the descending moon.
 
My horse moved on; hoof after hoof
He raised, and never stopp'd:
When down behind the cottage roof,
At once, the bright moon dropp'd.
 
What fond and wayward thoughts will slide
Into a lover's head!
'O mercy!' to myself I cried,
'If Lucy should be dead!'

Stay well. Stay safe. Keep reading.