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Siegfried Sassoon - Prelude To An Unwritten Masterpiece
Work rating: Low

You like my bird-sung gardens: wings and flowers;   
Calm landscapes for emotion; star-lit lawns;   
And Youth against the sun-rise… ‘Not profound;   
‘But such a haunting music in the sound:   
‘Do it once more; it helps us to forget’.
   
Last night I dreamt an old recurring scene—   
Some complex out of childhood; (sex, of course!)   
I can’t remember how the trouble starts;   
And then I’m running blindly in the sun   
Down the old orchard, and there’s something cruel
Chasing me; someone roused to a grim pursuit   
Of clumsy anger… Crash! I’m through the fence   
And thrusting wildly down the wood that’s dense   
With woven green of safety; paths that wind   
Moss-grown from glade to glade; and far behind,
One thwarted yell; then silence. I’ve escaped.   
   
That’s where it used to stop. Last night I went   
Onward until the trees were dark and huge,   
And I was lost, cut off from all return   
By swamps and birdless jungles. I’d no chance
Of getting home for tea. I woke with shivers,   
And thought of crocodiles in crawling rivers.   
   
Some day I’ll build (more ruggedly than Doughty)   
A dark tremendous song you’ll never hear.   
My beard will be a snow-storm, drifting whiter 
On bowed, prophetic shoulders, year by year.   
And some will say, ‘His work has grown so dreary.’   
Others, ‘He used to be a charming writer’.   
And you, my friend, will query—   
‘Why can’t you cut it short, you pompous blighter?’
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