Wilfred Edward Salter Owen

(Being the philosophy of many Soldiers.) Sit on the bed; I'm blind, and three parts shell. Be careful; can't shake hands now; never shall.

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? — Only the monstrous anger of the guns. Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle

I, too, saw God through mud-- The mud that cracked on cheeks when wretches smiled. War brought more glory to their eyes than blood,

Let the boy try along this bayonet-blade How cold steel is, and keen with hunger of blood; Blue with all malice, like a madman's flash;

His fingers wake, and flutter up the bed. His eyes come open with a pull of will, Helped by the yellow may-flowers by his head.

He sat in a wheeled chair, waiting for dark, And shivered in his ghastly suit of grey, Legless, sewn short at elbow. Through the park

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,

Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knive us . . . Wearied we keep awake because the night is silent . . . Low drooping flares confuse our memory of the salient . . .

Move him into the sun— Gently its touch awoke him once, At home, whispering of fields half-sown.

Red lips are not so red As the stained stones kissed by the English dead. Kindness of wooed and wooer

I Happy are men who yet before they are killed Can let their veins run cold.

Who are these? Why sit they here in twilight? Wherefore rock they, purgatorial shadows, Drooping tongues from jaws that slob their relish,

So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went, And took the fire with him, and a knife. And as they sojourned both of them together,

This book is not about heroes.    English Poetry is not yet fit to speak of them.    Nor is it about deeds or lands, nor anything about glory, honour, dominion or power, except War. Above all, this book is not concerned with Poetry.

I will to the King, And offer him consolation in his trouble, For that man there has set his teeth to die,

Head to limp head, the sunk-eyed wounded scanned Yesterday's Mail; the casualties (typed small) And (large) Vast Booty from our Latest Haul.

Halted against the shade of a last hill, They fed, and, lying easy, were at ease And, finding comfortable chests and knees

It seemed that out of battle I escaped Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped Through granites which titanic wars had groined.

Earth's wheels run oiled with blood.    Forget we that. Let us lie down and dig ourselves in thought. Beauty is yours and you have mastery,

I mind as 'ow the night afore that show Us five got talking,--we was in the know, "Over the top to-morrer; boys, we're for it,

He dropped,--more sullenly than wearily, Lay stupid like a cod, heavy like meat, And none of us could kick him to his feet;

After the blast of lightning from the east, The flourish of loud clouds, the Chariot throne, After the drums of time have rolled and ceased

Down the close, darkening lanes they sang their way To the siding-shed, And lined the train with faces grimly gay.

We'd found an old Boche dug-out, and he knew, And gave us hell, for shell on frantic shell Hammered on top, but never quite burst through.

My soul looked down from a vague height with Death, As unremembering how I rose or why, And saw a sad land, weak with sweats of dearth,

(Another version of "A Terre".) To Siegfried Sassoon My arms have mutinied against me--brutes!