Arrogance Lurking in an Haute Bourgeois Reptile
‘I am sure he will be a very good poet some day, and he is a very loveable creature’.
Siegfried Sassoon writing to Robert Graves as quoted in
Jean Moorcroft Wilson’s Siegfried Sassoon,
the Making of a War Poet, p.425
‘Had up at Salisbury magistrate’s court on a motoring offence – he [Siegfried Sasson] was a famously erratic driver – he complained[,] “How many of them suspected that I have written poems in the last 2 months which will be glorious long after Salisbury Town hall has been pulled down and carted away?”’ ~ Quoting D. J. Taylor
Yes, ja, he had a noble nose. That’s true.
Yes, he was worshipped by short Owen in
Craiglockhart, cleft that chin that gave a clue
(Another one) about what caused the sin
(The unrequited sin) the younger one
Fell into. So stupidities will grow
Between a poet and a poet, son
And father almost. Arrogance will know
Its ways because of love. This pride will take
Presumption as its right. The greater lines
Are not as worthy as the master snake
That edits them, sand blind to prophet signs.
He had a kind of dash, a cool panache,
But couldn’t even praise without a crash.
~ Phillip Whidden