Burning my dreams away beside the fire: For death has made me wise and bitter and strong; And I am rich in all that I have lost. - Siegfried Sassoon

Who's this — alone with stone and sky?
It's only my old dog and I — It's only him; it's only me;
Alone with stone and grass and tree.

What share we most — we two together?
Smells, and awareness of the weather.
What is it makes us more than dust?
My trust in him; in me his trust.

I did not dread the dark winter as people do when they have lost their youth and live alone in some great city. — Siegfried Sassoon, Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man (Andesite Press, August 8, 2015)

Suicide in the trenches:

I knew a simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.

In winter trenches, cowed and glum
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.

* * * * *

You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you'll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.