Sonnet Blog Post

Siegfried Sassoon
Dreamers

(A)Soldiers are citizens of death's gray land,

(B)Drawing no dividend from time's tomorrows.

(A)In the great hour of destiny they stand,

(B)Each with his feuds, and jealousies, and sorrows

(C)Soldiers are sworn to action; they must win

(D)Some flaming, fatal climax with their lives.

--------------------------------------------------------**

(C)Soldiers are dreamers; when the guns begin

(D)They think of firelit homes, clean beds, and wives.

(E)I see them in foul dugouts, gnawed by rats,

(F)And in the ruined trenches, lashed with rain,

(E)Dreaming of things they did with balls and bats,

(F)And mocked by hopeless longing to regain

(E)Bank holidays, and picture shows, and spats,

(F)And going to the office in the train.

**emphasis mine

"Sonnets." Of World War I. Sonnet Central, n.d. Web. 09 Dec. 2015.

    This World War 1 era sonnet appears at first glance to follow the traditional outline of a Shakespearean sonnet, with the first three quatrains being ABAB, CDCD, and EFEF respectively. However, the shift (or volta) in the sonnet occurs in the middle of the sonnet, between the first set of CD rhymes and the second set (denoted by dashed line). Also, the last two lines are a continuation of the EFEF rhyme scheme as opposed to a GG rhyming couplet. The poem itself is also unique in that it does not deal with love in the way a traditional sonnet does. There is no love here in the romantic sense. Instead, the poem is all about the love soldiers experience for the simpler things and, such as "...clean beds" and "Bank holidays and picture shows...". The poem shows the shift in thinking and in action experienced by many WW1 soldiers on the front lines from patriotic and dauntless to frightened, miserable, and homesick.