The names are significant. He was occupied
with natural beauty and with music. In 1913 he
publishes in a limited and obscure edition Apollo in
Doelyrium, wherein it seems that he is beginning to
find a certain want of body and basis in his poems
made of beautiful words about beautiful objects.
Later in the same year, with Masefield's Everlasting
Mercy (1911), Widow in the Bye Sheet (1912) and
Daffodil Fields (1913) before him, he starts to write a
parody of these uncouth intrusions of the sorrows of
obscure persons into his paradise but half way through
the poem adopts the Masefield manner in earnest
[Footnote: I had this from his own mouth.]
and finishes by unsuccessfully endeavouring to rival his
master. In 1914 the War breaks out. Home on leave
in 1915 he privately prints Discoveries, a little book
which contains some of the loveliest of his 'paradise'
poems. In 1916 the change has come. He can hardly
believe it himself. 'Morning Glory' (privately printed)
includes four war poems. He has not definitely
turned to his later style but he hovers on the brink.
The war is beginning to pain him. The poems 'To
Victory' and 'The Dragon and the Undying' show him
turning toward his paradise to see if its beauty can save
him ... The year 1917 witnesses the publication of
The Old Huntsman.
[Footnote: 'The Old Huntsman,' Dutton & Co., 1918.]
This book secured instantaneous success.
Siegfried Sassoon, on its publication,
became one of the leading young poets of England.
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