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-storm… - Wilfred Owen

These men are worth your tears. You are not worth their merriment.

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.

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.

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.
Yet these elegies are to this generation in no sense consolatory. They may be to the next. All a poet can do today is to warn. That is why the true Poets must be truthful.

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

The dust that fell unnoted as a dew,
Wrapped the dead city's face like mummy-cloth