When I’m among a Blaze of Lights

Siegfried Sassoon 1886 (Matfield) – 1967 (Heytesbury)



When I’m among a blaze of lights,
With tawdry music and cigars
And women dawdling through delights,
And officers in cocktail bars,
Sometimes I think of garden nights
And elm trees nodding at the stars.

I dream of a small firelit room
With yellow candles burning straight,
And glowing pictures in the gloom,
And kindly books that hold me late.
Of things like these I choose to think
When I can never be alone:
Then someone says ‘Another drink?’
And turns my living heart to stone.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 22, 2023

26 sec read
226

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABABAB CDCDEFEF
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 491
Words 89
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 6, 8

Siegfried Sassoon

Siegfried Loraine Sassoon, CBE, MC was an eminent English poet, writer, and soldier. Decorated for bravery on the Western Front, 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. He later won acclaim for his prose work, notably his three-volume fictionalised autobiography, collectively known as the "Sherston trilogy". more…

All Siegfried Sassoon poems | Siegfried Sassoon Books

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