Siegfried Sassoon, "Fight to a Finish"

Posted on March 14, 2009 by Victoria Janssen

Explanatory note: So, why all the World War One poetry, you ask? Because I love it, and my love for this poetry is one of the reasons I became so interested in researching that particular historical period, and I want to share. Moonlight Mistress is set during World War One.

Fight to a Finish

The boys came back. Bands played and flags were flying,
And Yellow-Pressmen thronged the sunlit street
To cheer the soldiers who’d refrained from dying,
And hear the music of returning feet.
‘Of all the thrills and ardours War has brought,
This moment is the finest.’ (So they thought.)

Snapping their bayonets on to charge the mob,
Grim Fusiliers broke ranks with glint of steel,
At last the boys had found a cushy job.
. . . .

I heard the Yellow-Pressmen grunt and squeal;
And with my trusty bombers turned and went
To clear those Junkers out of Parliament.

–Siegfried Sassoon, Counter-Attack and Other Poems, 1918

About Victoria Janssen

Victoria Janssen [she, her] currently writes cozy space opera for Kalikoi. The novella series A Place of Refuge begins with Finding Refuge: Telepathic warrior Talia Avi, genius engineer Miki Boudreaux, and augmented soldier Faigin Balfour fought the fascist Federated Colonies for ten years, following the charismatic dissenter Jon Churchill. Then Jon disappeared, Talia was thought dead, and Miki and Faigin struggled to take Jon’s place and stay alive. When the FC is unexpectedly upended, Talia is reunited with her friends and they are given sanctuary on the enigmatic planet Refuge. The trio of former guerillas strive to recover from lifetimes of trauma, build new lives on a planet with endless horizons, and forge tender new connections with each other.
This entry was posted in sassoon, wwi poetry. Bookmark the permalink.

2 Responses to Siegfried Sassoon, "Fight to a Finish"

  1. Jenna Reynolds says:
    March 14, 2009 at 1:09 pm

    I’m not as familiar with the WWI era, although I do love history, but one of my favorte Dr. Who episodes, which is from Season 3, was “Human Nature” and “The Family of Blood”, both of which were set in pre-WWI England. It’s actually a 2-part episode. And I have read some WWI era poets, such as Rupert Brooke and Wilfred Owen. So it’s great to see some erotic novels set in that time period being published.

  2. Victoria Janssen says:
    March 17, 2009 at 12:31 pm

    “Human Nature” and “Family of Blood” were awesome, weren’t they?

Comments are closed.