A Commentary on 'A Mystic As Soldier' by Siegfried Sassoon

Siegfried Sassoon was an English soldier and poet, decorated for his bravery in the First
World War, and recognised as being an important poet of world war one. His poems often
described the horrors he experienced in the trenches, or critiqued those behind a war he
felt was pointless. He was born on September 8th, 1886, and died September the 1st,
1967.
The poem I chose was A Mystic As Soldier, and it seems to be Sassoons very personal
reflection on the war, and more importantly, its affects on him. What I like most about this
poem is how the poet uses his own personal experience from the war to illustrate the
horrors of the First World War and how devastatingly it can affect someone. He first
illustrates how his life was before becoming a soldier, setting it up as being very idyllic and
peaceful. In the first stanza, he has an inner bliss in his solitude here, he is the mystic.
It gives this very esoteric feeling, and indeed, in the first stanza he is dreaming fair songs
for God. There seems to be a unity within him, with himself and with the absolute.
Sassoon only became very religious in the later part of his life, converting to Roman
Catholicism after the Second World War. It seems here that in this line, Sassoon uses God
as metaphor for his own inner harmony, and with that metaphor, elevates his inner peace
to something almost transcendental. There is this glorification of his inner peace. In the
third line, glory seems to both praise his god (his inner solace) and say that it is
something beautiful.
The beauty that Sassoon illustrates with the first stanza makes its destruction all the more
poignant and tragic. It seems to refer to the disruption of his inner peace he must now
find god in the strife, a reference to the war. He has lost that solace he had in the first
stanza to the death and violence of war. It seems to enclose him, as death outnumbers
life and fury smites the air. It feels like there is an outrage within him in the last line, and
this seems to be the theme of the last stanza. Here he outright states that there is anger in
my brain He cannot find that inner peace again. He asks when this music through my
clay that is his peace and his devotion to his peace will sound again. The reference to
clay seems to show how intrinsic this music, this peace is. It is in the clay, in the ground,
almost as though he says it is in his roots, in the core and foundation of himself. This
seems to be why he says I still walk the secret way. This alludes to the esotericism of the
first stanza. He tries once again to become that mystic he was in the beginning, but the
transformation into soldier, or perhaps the experience of the war has destroyed this part of
himself. The title seems to be a reference to how he sees himself. He has become a
soldier through his experiences in the war, but at the same instance he is still much a
mystic, he is still someone trying to find unity with something greater than himself. The
ending makes this all the more tragic as despite his devotion to this secret way he can no
longer find his music, his bliss. The first stanza made it seem so intrinsic, so at the core of
him, that its destruction at the hands of war makes its loss all the more tragic. Through

Sassoons inability to regain his inner peace during the war, we see how destructive and
horrific it can be. Sassoon has used such a personal facet of himself to heighten in the
eyes of the audience how horrendous war seems.