LAUGH, AND THE WORLD LAUGHS WITH YOU
WEEP
AND YOU WEEP ALONE

PRIVATE ARTHUR GEORGE EDWARD VASSAR

LONDON REGIMENT ROYAL FUSILIERS

25TH SEPTEMBER 1917 AGE 20

BURIED: BOULOGNE EASTERN CEMETERY, FRANCE


Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone;
For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth,
But has troubles enough of its own.
Sing, and the hills will answer;
Sigh, it is lost on the air;
The echoes bound to a joyful sound,
But shrink from voicing care.

This is the first verse of the popular American poet Ella Wheeler Wilcox's (1850-1917) most famous poem, Solitude, and Private Vassar's inscription is its most famous line. It's not just that people do 'not need your woe', so that you are forced to 'weep alone' and 'drink life's gall' alone, but the fact is that we must all die alone:

But one by one we must all file on
Through the narrow aisles of pain.

Vassar enlisted in July 1915 when he was still only 18. He served in France from 23 February 1916 until he was wounded seven months later on 12 September. He didn't return to the front until 24 July 1917. There is no record of when he was wounded again but he died of these wounds two months later in a base hospital in Boulogne.