Siegfried Sassoon was one of the first writers brave enough to use poetry to describe war as it really is brutalizing, destructive, horrific, and an indefensible waste of human lives. Earlier poets certainly recognized the sadness of war ('the flowers of the forest are withered away'). But they didn't question its association with heroism and glory. Even Siegfried Sassoon's first war poems, written before he had experienced war at first hand, showed he hadn't yet shaken off an old-fashioned romantic view of it. he anguish of the earth absolves our eyes. Till beauty shines in all that we can see.
