I died in hell. They called it Passchendaele. - Siegfried Sassoon

Mute in the clamour of shells he watched them burst Spouting dark earth and wire with gusts from hell, While posturing giants dissolved in drifts of smoke. He crouched and flinched, dizzy with galloping fear, Sick for escape,— loathing the strangled horror And butchered, frantic gestures of the dead.

Sitting here I glance over my right shoulder at the little row of books, red and green and blue, which stand waiting for my hand, offering their accumulated riches. I think of the years that may be in store for me, and of all the pages I may turn.

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)