Wilfred Owen Quotes

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.

Tonight he noticed how the women's eyes
Passed from him to the strong men that were whole.

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod.

Voices of boys were by the river-side.
Sleep mothered them; and left the twilight sad.

For by my glee might many men have laughed,
And of my weeping may something have been left,
Which must die now.

All a poet can do today is warn. That is why the true Poets must be truthful.

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,
And half the seed of Europe, one by one

Now begin
Famines of thought and feeling.

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory
That old lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

"The Chances"

"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,
First wave we are, first ruddy wave; that’s tore it.”
“Ah well,” says Jimmy, — an’ ’e’s seen some scrappin’ — “There ain’t more nor five things as can ’appen;
Ye get knocked out; else wounded — bad or cushy;
Scuppered; or nowt except yer feeling mushy.”

One of us got the knock-out, blown to chops.
T’other was hurt, like, losin’ both ’is props.
An’ one, to use the word of ’ypocrites,
‘Ad the misfortoon to be took by Fritz.
Now me, I wasn’t scratched, praise God Almighty
(Though next time please I’ll thank ’im for a blighty),
But poor young Jim, ’e’s livin’ an’ ’e’s not;
’E reckoned ’e’d five chances, an’ ’e’s ’ad;
’E’s wounded, killed, and pris’ner, all the lot — The ruddy lot all rolled in one. Jim’s mad."

Shall they return to beating of great bells
In wild train-loads?
A few, a few, too few for drums and yells,
May creep back, silent, to village wells,
Up half-known roads.

Children are not meant to be studied, but enjoyed. Only by studying to be pleased do we understand them.

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, might, majesty, dominion, or power, except War. Above all I am not concerned with Poetry. My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity.

Some say God caught them even before they fell.

"Apologia Pro Poemate Meo"

I, too, saw God through mud — The mud that cracked on cheeks when wretches smiled.
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.

I, too, have dropped off fear — Behind the barrage, dead as my platoon,
And sailed my spirit surging, light and clear
Past the entanglement where hopes lay strewn;

And witnessed exultation — Faces that used to curse me, scowl for scowl,
Shine and lift up with passion of oblation,
Seraphic for an hour; though they were foul.

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,

But Joy, whose ribbon slips, — But wound with war’s hard wire whose stakes are strong;
Bound with the bandage of the arm that drips;
Knit in the welding of the rifle-thong.

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.

Nevertheless, except you share
With them in hell the sorrowful dark of hell,
Whose world is but the trembling of a flare,
And heaven but as the highway for a shell,

You shall not hear their mirth:
You shall not come to think them well content
By any jest of mine. These men are worth
Your tears: You are not worth their merriment.