Siegfried Sassoon's Repression of War Experience is, I believe, a poem chronicling his conflict between not believing in the war and needing to return to it, as he talks to himself. Out of the war zone, his thoughts ramble as he doesn't know what to think about anymore, like a bad song in your head. The sentences throughout the poem are long, as if he is trying to distract himself from thinking about the war, picking up on anything but that.
The poem begins with a moth- a "silly beggar" that gets too close to the flame. This could be a metaphor for what Sassoon feels, and what soldiers in the war do; they volunteer because they think they need some purpose, or that it is their duty, or for glory, and in a way they are begging to be told what to do. However, as they go too close to what they want, the "glory, liquid flame", they "scorch their wings", meaning that they die in war. Right away Sassoon says, "no, no, not that,-- it's bad to think of the war", and so we can see that he doesn't want to dwell on this. He "gagged" them all day, showing that war, as a bad song stuck in your mind does, keeps coming back and he can't get rid of it. "Gagged" gives the impression of throwing up- something he probably wanted to do when thinking of war. And he doesn't want to think about it for fear of becoming one of the ones who "jabber among the trees". He needs to be in "control" of those "ugly thoughts". When he says, "it's been proved that soldiers don't go mad", it almost seems like this is something he's been told- and thus these two contrasting ideas (for and against the war) are at play. Away from war, Sassoon isn't sure what he believes in, and he doesn't want to think about it because he kind of knows that he may drive himself craz.
The next stanza deals with him using all these techniques to calm down and take his mind off the war- but again, it seems as if he's repeating what someone else had said: "draw a deep breath; stop thinking, count fifteen, and you're as right as rain". This doesn't work, as his mind runs on and goes off on a bunch of tangents. He doesn't know what he should think, and he can't come down and relax, because he has to distract himself from thinking about the war- he asks, "why won't it rain?", wishing for "thunder-storm tonight". It looks as if Sassoon wishes to be back at war- where there is thunder, and sadness where the roses hang their dripping heads, and he can empty out the trenches "with bucketsful of water to sluice the dark". This action of sluicing the dark I think mirrors one where you would be frantically trying to drain the trench you are in, covered in mud, and throwing it out where it is pitch black at night.
Sassoon then tries to distract himself again- he mentions books. By contrasting these two moods one after the other, it becomes clear that he goes back and forth with what he thinks about the war, and that his mind is lost: "Books; what a jolly company they are, standing so quiet and patient on their shelves, dressed in dim brown, and black, and white, and green, and every kind of colour". He enjoys books because they are filled with stories not about war, but are "quiet and patient"; they are "jolly company" opposed to the horrible war. By listing all the colors, joined with "and" and then at the end "every kind of colour", it creates the mood that he is just thinking about everything he sees in an attempt to not think about the war. When he asks, "which will you read?", and then, "O do read something" I think he is talking to himself, trying to get himself to concentrate on something or feel better.
When next he says "I tell you all the wisdom of the world is waiting for you on those shelves;" this is followed by "and yet you sit and gnaw your nails, and let your pipe out, and listen to the silence". If he's talking to himself, this clearly demonstrates his two conflicting thoughts- one where he wants to forget about the war and delve into the wisdom of books, and another where he cannot let the war go. His mood is reflected yet a gain with the metaphor of the moth, as there is "one big, dizzy moth that bumps and flutters"- much like him, the moth has gone around in circles. He is dizzy from thinking fast and yet not thinking at all, and he is as fluttery as a moth in this situation. Outside, "the garden waits for something that delays", and I think this too reveals that he is waiting for something. What he is waiting for becomes clear after the next few lines: "there must be crowds of hosts among the trees,- not people killed in battle, [...] but horrible shapes in shrouds- old men who died slow, natural deaths, - old men with ugly souls, who wore their bodies out with nasty sins". Sassoon holds distaste not for soldiers taking part in the war, but for those who didn't- those are the ones who lived long lives, and died slow, natural deaths- something that many soldiers were denied. Sassoon probably feels resentment that some escaped from the war, not upholding their duty to protect other soldiers. In Regeneration by Pat Barker, Sassoon goes to a medical hospital because he protested against the war, but joins the war in the end not because he believes in the war, but because he could not leave his men behind. I think this is the case- while he is struggling with what he believes about the war, the fact remains that he misses it, and he feels that people need him. The garden could be waiting for someone to use it, as he is- Sassoon is waiting for his orders to return to the war.
The last stanza is one where Sassoon speaks directly to himself, "You're quiet and peaceful, summering safe at home". In one way, he's trying to calm himself down, trying to be like what "normal" people, citizens, feel at home. However, he cannot successfully do this because he knows that a war is going on, and he has a duty to fight- "You'd never think there was a bloody war on!..." Sassoon is angered that where he is is so "safe" and "peaceful": he can't just forget about, no matter how hard he has tried. When he says to himself, "O yes, you would", instead of talking about anyone not knowing there was a war on, he says to himself, "O yes" as if it was obvious that he would hear it. He knows that as a soldier, he is different from citizens. In Regeneration, Sassoon expresses a certain distaste for those who were not a part of the war and did not understand it- he felt separated from his own home. Here it is the same- he is surrounded by harmless things- books, moths, clear skies- but anything he thinks about brings him back to the war. "Why, you can hear the guns. Hark! Thud, thud, thud,- quite soft... they never cease- those whispering guns- O Christ, I want to go out and screech at them to stop- I'm going crazy; I'm going stark, staring mad because of the guns". While this is only one sentence, he says only phrases in short bursts, showing that he's losing control, and the guns are ever prevalent in his mind, no matter where he is. While he tried to distract himself, he was unsuccessful, and the guns "never cease" that he tenses up- he wants to "screech at them to stop" as he gets angry and loses control. And he finally realizes- the combination of trying to keep everything in, wanting to be in the war, not wanting to be in the war, the rising tension, has made him want to explode. The repetition of the "s" and the "sh" sounds- "soft", "cease", "whispering", "Christ", "screech", "stop", "crazy", "stark", "staring"- reveal the growing pressure within him.
So overall, the poem is him regressing back to his war experience; even though he is out of the war zone, he can never completely leave it. The guns "never cease", and this causes a conflict within him between knowing the horror of the war (eg. parallel to moth's life and "ugly thoughts"), and knowing that there are people out there dying and he should be there too (eg. the crowds of ghosts of those who didn't die from war, something shameful in Sassoon's eyes).
