Siegfried Sassoon, 'Night-Piece'

[duathir.livejournal.com]

Night-Piece

Ye hooded witches, baleful shapes that moan,
Quench your fantastic lanterns and be still;
For now the moon through heaven sails alone,
Shedding her peaceful rays from hill to hill.
The faun from out his dim and secret place
Draws nigh the darkling pool and from his dream
Half-wakens, seeing there his sylvan face
Reflected, and the wistful eyes that gleam.

To his cold lips he sets the pipe to blow
Some drowsy note that charms the listening air:
The dryads from their trees come down and creep
Near to his side; monotonous and low,
He plays and plays till at the woodside there
Stirs to the voice of everlasting sleep.

By Siegfried Sassoon

Comments

[larryhammer]

I kept waiting for the shoe to drop that would reveal this is taking place in the trenches ...

[duathir.livejournal.com]

It is likely this poem preceded the war. Sassoon was ever a romantic, even in the trenches, but he was an innocent romantic before he got to them.

[larryhammer]

It's possible. It's from his 1918 collection The Old Huntsman, with no date indicated.