Wilfred Owen

“ Soldiers may grow a soul when turned to fronds, But here the thing's best left at home with friends. My soul's a little grief, grappling your chest, To climb your throat on sobs; easily chased On other sighs and wiped by fresher winds. Carry my crying spirit till it's weaned To do without what blood remained these wounds.
Wild with all Regrets (Another version of "A Terre".) To Siegfried Sassoon My arms have mutinied against me—brutes! My fingers fidget like ten idle brats, My back's been stiff for hours, damned hours. Death never gives his squad a Stand-at-ease. ”

“ I said, "Here is no cause to mourn." "None," said the other, "Save the undone years, The hopelessness. Whatever hope is yours, Was my life also; I went hunting wild After the wildest beauty in the world, Which lies not calm in eyes, or braided hair, But mocks the steady running of the hour, And if it grieves, grieves richlier than here. For by my glee might many men have laughed, And of my weeping something has been left, Which must die now. I mean the truth untold, The pity of war, the pity war distilled. Now men will go content with what we spoiled. ”

“ Men, gaps for filling Losses who might have fought Longer; but no one bothers. II And some cease feeling Even themselves or for themselves. Dullness best solves The tease and doubt of shelling, And Chance's strange arithmetic Comes simpler than the reckoning of their shilling. They keep no check on Armies' decimation. III Happy are these who lose imagination: They have enough to carry with ammunition. Their spirit drags no pack. Their old wounds save with cold can not more ache. Having seen all things red, Their eyes are rid Of the hurt of the colour of blood for ever. ”

“ Surely we have perished Sleeping, and walk hell; but who these hellish? —These are men whose minds the Dead have ravished. Memory fingers in their hair of murders, Multitudinous murders they once witnessed. Wading sloughs of flesh these helpless wander, Treading blood from lungs that had loved laughter. Always they must see these things and hear them, Batter of guns and shatter of flying muscles, Carnage incomparable and human squander Rucked too thick for these men's extrication. ”

“ War brought more glory to their eyes than blood, And gave their laughs more glee than shakes a child. Merry it was to laugh there— Where death becomes absurd and life absurder. For power was on us as we slashed bones bare Not to feel sickness or remorse of murder. ”

“ Let us forego men's minds that are brute's natures, Let us not sup the blood which some say nurtures, Be we not swift with swiftness of the tigress. Let us break ranks from those who trek from progress. ”

“ Less deadly than the air that shudders black with snow, With sidelong flowing flakes that flock, pause and renew, We watch them wandering up and down the wind's nonchalance, But nothing happens. II Pale flakes with lingering stealth come feeling for our faces— We cringe in holes, back on forgotten dreams, and stare, snow-dazed, Deep into grassier ditches. So we drowse, sun-dozed, Littered with blossoms trickling where the blackbird fusses. Is it that we are dying? ”

“ He sings along the march Which we march taciturn, because of dusk, The long, forlorn, relentless trend From larger day to huger night. V We wise, who with a thought besmirch Blood over all our soul, How should we see our task But through his blunt and lashless eyes? Alive, he is not vital overmuch; Dying, not mortal overmuch ”

“ I have made fellowships— Untold of happy lovers in old song. For love is not the binding of fair lips With the soft silk of eyes that look and long, By Joy, whose ribbon slips,— But wound with war's hard wire whose stakes are strong ”

“ Kindness of wooed and wooer Seems shame to their love pure. O Love, your eyes lose lure When I behold eyes blinded in my stead! Your slender attitude Trembles not exquisite like limbs knife-skewed, Rolling and rolling there Where God seems not to care; Till the fierce Love they bear Cramps them in death's extreme decrepitude. ”

“ Watching, we hear the mad gusts tugging on the wire. Like twitching agonies of men among its brambles. Northward incessantly, the flickering gunnery rumbles, Far off, like a dull rumour of some other war. What are we doing here? The poignant misery of dawn begins to grow . . . We only know war lasts, rain soaks, and clouds sag stormy. ”

“ Not worse than ours the existences rats lead— Nosing along at night down some safe vat, They find a shell-proof home before they rot. Dead men may envy living mites in cheese, Or good germs even. Microbes have their joys, And subdivide, and never come to death, Certainly flowers have the easiest time on earth. ”

“ Shutters and doors all closed: on us the doors are closed— We turn back to our dying. Since we believe not otherwise can kind fires burn; Nor ever suns smile true on child, or field, or fruit. For God's invincible spring our love is made afraid ”

“ The few who rushed in the body to enter hell, And there out-fiending all its fiends and flames With superhuman inhumanities, Long-famous glories, immemorial shames— And crawling slowly back, have by degrees Regained cool peaceful air in wonder— Why speak they not of comrades that went under? ”

“ Greater Love Red lips are not so red As the stained stones kissed by the English dead. ”

“ Their senses in some scorching cautery of battle Now long since ironed, Can laugh among the dying, unconcerned. IV Happy the soldier home, with not a notion How somewhere, every dawn, some men attack, And many sighs are drained. ”

“ A short life and a merry one, my buck! We said we'd hate to grow dead old. But now, Not to live old seems awful: not to renew My boyhood with my boys, and teach 'em hitting, Shooting and hunting,—all the arts of hurting! ”

“ Meanwhile their foremost need is aerodromes, It being certain war has just begun. Peace would do wrong to our undying dead,— The sons we offered might regret they died If we got nothing lasting in their stead. ”

“ We sent him down at last, out of the way. Unwounded;—stout lad, too, before that strafe. Malingering? Stretcher-bearers winked, "Not half!" Next day I heard the Doc.'s well-whiskied laugh: "That scum you sent last night soon died. ”

“ I suppose Little I'd ever teach a son, but hitting, Shooting, war, hunting, all the arts of hurting. ”

“ Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes. The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall; Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds, And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds. ”

“ Though all be worthy Victory which all bought, We rulers sitting in this ancient spot Would wrong our very selves if we forgot The greatest glory will be theirs who fought, Who kept this nation in integrity. ”

“ Your voice sings not so soft,— Though even as wind murmuring through raftered loft,— Your dear voice is not dear, Gentle, and evening clear, As theirs whom none now hear Now earth has stopped their piteous mouths that coughed. ”

“ Behold, A ram caught in a thicket by its horns; Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him. But the old man would not so, but slew his son. ”

“ A few, a few, too few for drums and yells, May creep back, silent, to still village wells Up half-known roads.
Insensibility I Happy are men who yet before they are killed Can let their veins run cold. Whom no compassion fleers Or makes their feet Sore on the alleys cobbled with their brothers. ”

“ Futility Move him into the sun— Gently its touch awoke him once, At home, whispering of fields unsown. ”

“ The subject of it is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity. Yet these elegies are not to this generation, This is in no sense consolatory. They may be to the next. All the poet can do to-day is to warn. That is why the true Poets must be truthful. If I thought the letter of this book would last, I might have used proper names; but if the spirit of it survives Prussia,—my ambition and those names will be content; for they will have achieved themselves fresher fields than Flanders. Note.—This Preface was found, in an unfinished condition, among Wilfred Owen's papers. ”

“ To-night he noticed how the women's eyes Passed from him to the strong men that were whole. ”

“ Anthem for Doomed Youth What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? Only the monstrous anger of the guns. Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle Can patter out their hasty orisons. No mockeries for them; no prayers nor bells, Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,— The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells; And bugles calling for them from sad shires. ”

“ I have perceived much beauty In the hoarse oaths that kept our courage straight; Heard music in the silentness of duty; Found peace where shell-storms spouted reddest spate. ”

“ Dulce et Decorum est Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs, And towards our distant rest began to trudge. ”

“ —O what made fatuous sunbeams toil To break earth's sleep at all? ”

“ He's lost his colour very far from here, Poured it down shell-holes till the veins ran dry, And half his lifetime lapsed in the hot race, And leap of purple spurted from his thigh. ”

“ Esprit de corps; and hints for young recruits. And soon, he was drafted out with drums and cheers. Some cheered him home, but not as crowds cheer Goal. Only a solemn man who brought him fruits Thanked him ”