I <br /> <br />From you, Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, <br />The substance of my dreams took fire. <br />You built cathedrals in my heart, <br />And lit my pinnacled desire. <br />You were the ardour and the bright <br />Procession of my thoughts toward prayer. <br />You were the wrath of storm, the light <br />On distant citadels aflare. <br /> <br />II <br /> <br />Great names, I cannot find you now <br />In these loud years of youth that strives <br />Through doom toward peace: upon my brow <br />I wear a wreath of banished lives. <br />You have no part with lads who fought <br />And laughed and suffered at my side. <br />Your fugues and symphonies have brought <br />No memory of my friends who died. <br /> <br />III <br /> <br />For when my brain is on their track, <br />In slangy speech I call them back. <br />With fox-trot tunes their ghosts I charm. <br />‘Another little drink won’t do us any harm.’ <br />I think of rag-time; a bit of rag-time; <br />And see their faces crowding round <br />To the sound of the syncopated beat. <br />They’ve got such jolly things to tell, <br />Home from hell with a Blighty wound so neat... <br /> <br />. . . . <br />And so the song breaks off; and I’m alone. <br />They’re dead ... For God’s sake stop that gramophone.<br /><br />Siegfried Sassoon<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/dead-musicians/
