Charles Sorley (
1895 -
October 13,
1915) was a
British poet of
World War I. Born in
Aberdeen, Scotland, he was educated, like
Siegfried Sassoon, at
Marlborough College. Having won a scholarship to
University College, Oxford at the beginning of the war, he instead joined the
Suffolk Regiment[?] and quickly rose to the rank of Captain at the age of only twenty. He was killed in the
Battle of Loos[?] on October 13, 1915.
Sorley's work may be seen as a forerunner of Sassoon's and Owen's. His most famous lines include:-
- When you see millions of the mouthless dead
- Across your dreams in pale battalions go...
The writer Robert Goddard[?] took the title of his novel In Pale Battalions from these lines.
Sorley is regarded by some as the greatest loss of all the poets killed during the war.