About "Everyone suddenly burst(ing) out singing"

This is (very nearly) the first line of my favourite poem in all the world. Its words leapt off the page of our school poetry book and into my mind and heart where they have remained ever since. It was written by Siegfried Sassoon in 1919 after he had come through the First World War and is from his Collected War Poems.
I offer it here, now, in memory of the horror, in respect and admiration for those who lived through it and in deepest sorrow for those who died and for all who suffered in any way.

                Everyone Sang

Everyone suddenly burst out singing;
And I was filled with such delight
As prisoned birds must find in freedom,
Winging wildly across the white
Orchards and dark-green fields; on - on - and out of sight.

Everyone's voice was suddenly lifted;
And beauty came like the setting sun:
My heart was shaken with tears; and horror
Drifted away ... O, but Everyone
Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done.



My mother was born in 1914 and, maybe for that reason, that date has always seemed even more significant to me and has perhaps brought home more fully the reality of the outbreak of that terrible war.

I love this poem for the beauty and joy - and the hope - which suffuse its imagery and transcend that horror and always will, or so I choose to believe.