87676: Before the Battle

Manuscript in ink in Siegfried Sassoon's hand. This is a clean draft without corrections. Included in a collection of manuscript drafts of fifty of Siegfried Sassoon's poems. In a note at the back of the volume dated 20th December 1924 Sassoon writes that the blank pages are the rest of my life'. He adds that I made this manuscript when considering my choice for Selected Poems', 1925'. At a later date he adds that numerous redundant pages were removed when the book was rebound in 1953'. A digitally photographed facsimile of the volume was included in the Imperial War Museum's War Poets' exhibition in London in 2003. This poem was also published in 'The Old Huntsman' (1917).