Following him it was to be expected that others would express the same ideas. And one was not disappointed; they marched forward in platoons. The Wilfred Owens, the John McLeods. The Frederic Mannings, the Richard Aldingtons, the Herbert Reads, the Osbert-and-Edith Sitwells. Even Robert Nichols and Robert Graves began to express the disillusionment of a uniform. In the face of all this superior talent one waited vainly for the eclipse of Sassoon; while they spurted brilliantly he marched on; a bit heavy-footed, to be sure, but still with his eyes on the goal. There is a solidity about his verse which the others lacked; it enabled him to remain the leader of a movement for which he had acted as scout.
If Heinemann had attempted a chronological arrangement of his poems it would show the steady development of a mind. There was a time when Sassoon was as much obsessed as any by the glamour of brass buttons. He trumpeted the glory of battle, but even from his loudest trombone notes the do sol do of patriotism is strangely lacking.
Later came the great disillusion. The poems that resulted from it are too familiar now for a long discussion. Except this: that the verdict of many well-intentioned critics to the contrary, they are not "delicately ironical." The same gentlemen would probably speak of lynching-bees as one of the delicate ironies of American civilization. Sassoon lacks the masked sting of Pope or he is a man with a bludgeon, run amok in a mad world.
The end of the war found him ludicrously unprepared. For three years he had been leading the way to the promised land of peace, but now that he had arrived in Canaan and the Amalekites were dispersed, he was left without an occupation, still making vain gestures at imaginary opponents. A few months passed; he found himself ridiculously alone and became silent. He recalled the war days to his mind (perhaps, in spite of himself, a little regretfully) and asked his countrymen, "Have you forgotten yet?"
"For the world's events have rumbled on since those gagged days,
Like traffic checked awhile at the crossing of city ways:
And the haunted gap in your mind has filled with thoughts that flow
Like clouds in the lit heavens of life; and you're a man reprieved to go,
