Falling Asleep
Siegfried Sassoon 1886 (Matfield) – 1967 (Heytesbury)
Voices moving about in the quiet house:
Thud of feet and a muffled shutting of doors:
Everyone yawning. Only the clocks are alert.
Out in the night there’s autumn-smelling gloom
Crowded with whispering trees; across the park
A hollow cry of hounds like lonely bells:
And I know that the clouds are moving across the moon;
The low, red, rising moon. Now herons call
And wrangle by their pool; and hooting owls
Sail from the wood above pale stooks of oats.
Waiting for sleep, I drift from thoughts like these;
And where to-day was dream-like, build my dreams.
Music ... there was a bright white room below,
And someone singing a song about a soldier,
One hour, two hours ago: and soon the song
Will be ‘last night’: but now the beauty swings
Across my brain, ghost of remembered chords
Which still can make such radiance in my dream
That I can watch the marching of my soldiers,
And count their faces; faces; sunlit faces.
Falling asleep ... the herons, and the hounds....
September in the darkness; and the world
I’ve known; all fading past me into peace.
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 02, 2023
- 56 sec read
- 112 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | XXX XXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXX |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,066 |
Words | 188 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 3, 7, 10, 3 |
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