SELECTED POEMS Inscribed with Two Autograph Poems

London: William Heinemann Ltd., (1935). Reprint. Hardcover. Minor rubbing to edges; short closed tear at lower edge of half-title; minor split between gatherings C and D; minor paper clip stains and toning touching poems. Very Good, lacking the dustwrapper. INSCRIBED by the poet “Kate Carter/Hotel Boulevard/Veytaux/1935” on the front free endpaper. In addition Sassoon has written two AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPTS SIGNED, each a complete fair copy of a poem. One poem, “’When I'm Alone’ -- The Words Tripped Off His Tongue,” is written on the verso of the front endpaper and SIGNED at the conclusion:

“When I'm alone” -- the words tripped off his tongue
As though to be alone were nothing strange.
“When I was young,” he said; “when I was young.”
I thought of age, and loneliness, and change.
I thought how strange we grow when we're alone,
And how unlike the selves that meet, and talk,
And blow the candles out, and say good-night
Alone -- The word is life endured and known.
It is the stillness where our spirits walk
And all but inmost faith is overthrown.

The other poem, “Strangeness of Heart,” is written on the facing half-title page and is SIGNED at the beginning:

When I have lost the power to feel the pang
Which first I felt in childhood when I woke
And heard the unheeding garden bird who sang
Strangeness of heart for me while morning broke;
Or when in latening twilight sure with spring,
Pausing on homeward paths along the wood,
No sadness thrills my thought while thrushes sing,
And I'm no more the listening child who stood
So many sunsets past and could not say
What wandering voices called from far away:
When I have lost those simple spells that stirred
My being with an untranslated song,
Let me go home for ever; I shall have heard
Death; I shall know that I have lived too long.

Manuscript poems by this leading poet of the First World War are quite scarce.