I think this poem will be about someone dreaming about something pleasant. The soldiers are surrounded by war and horrible conditions. Their only hope of getting home is surviving. They dream about being at home with their spouses and enjoying the little things. This poem has a metaphor (soldiers are citizens of death's grey land), personification (mocked by hopeless longing), and hyperbole (gnawed by rats/lashed with rain). I think Sassoon admires the soldiers and feels sorry for them at the same time. I think he wants us to try and imagine what they are going through and feel his sympathy for them. The shift happens when he says soldiers are dreamers. The title means that soldiers are the actual dreamers. The theme is dreams are not always reality but we all have to have hope.
I like this poem although I'm not usually into war poems. I think in hard times we all dream of a unrealistic reality. I feel sorry for all the terrible conditions they go through. Yet that's what the author wanted me to do, feel sorry for them.
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Sassoon was a "trench poet," meaning he wrote from the trenches of WWI. So, he feels EMPATHY rather than SYMPATHY. He is a soldier!
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