This is The Daily Poem on the Close Reeds Podcast Network. I am Joshua Gibbs, filling in once again for

David Kern. My latest book, something they will not forget, a handbook for classical teachers,

is available now on the CERC website.

Today, I'm going to read a poem by Sigfried Sassoon.

Sassoon lived from 1886 to 1967.

He was famously a good friend of Wilfred Owens and best remembered as a war poet.

Best remembered as a poet who did not write nationalistic poetry, who did not write poems that exonerated the war effort, but spoke very frankly about the war,

as did Wilfred Owen. I don't have a brutal poem to read to you, though. I have Sasson's

most generous poem, and I really believe one of the most generous poems

ever written. The poem is everyone's saying, and I have such a strong affinity for this poem that

when my first child was born, the birth announcement that went out contained a lengthy portion of this poem.

It's quite short, and the kind of thing that you can memorize in about 10 minutes and might be a good thing to repeat to yourself often

in dark moments everyone sang by sigfried sassum everyone sang everyone suddenly burst out singing

and i was filled with such delight as prisoned birds must find in freedom, winging wildly across the wide orchards and dark green fields on, on, and out of sight.

Everyone's voice was suddenly lifted, and beauty came like the setting sun.

My heart was shaken with tears, and horror drifted away.

Oh, but everyone was a bird, and the song was wordless.

The singing will never be done.

I suppose that there's, I mean, really two ways in which the poem presents itself to be read.

One is an expression of joy at the thought of the war being over.

World War I, that is.

But one could also read this poem as an account of the joy that will be felt when every war is over.

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