All a poet can do today is warn. Wilfred Owen More Quotes by Wilfred Owen More Quotes From Wilfred Owen 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 conciliatory. They may be to the next. All a poet can do today is warn. That is why the true Poets must be truthful. Wilfred Owen this-generation generations war Ambition may be defined as the willingness to receive any number of hits on the nose. Wilfred Owen ambition numbers funny The old Lie:Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori. Wilfred Owen latin war lying Red lips are not so red as the stained stones kissed by the English dead. Wilfred Owen lips red stones Above all I am not concerned with Poetry. My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity. Wilfred Owen pity poetry-is war If I have to be a soldier I must be a good one, anything else is unthinkable Wilfred Owen unthinkable historical soldier No-man's land under snow is like the face of the moon: chaotic, crater ridden, uninhabitable, awful, the abode of madness. Wilfred Owen moon men war All the poet can do today is warn. That is why true Poets must be truthful. Wilfred Owen poet truth today If in some smothering dreams you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin; 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, The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. Wilfred Owen cancer dream children 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. Wilfred Owen hero war book These men are worth your tears. You are not worth their merriment. Wilfred Owen merriment tears men What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? Only the monstrous anger of the guns. Wilfred Owen bells gun war 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. Wilfred Owen eye war children And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall, By his dead smile I knew we stood in Hell. Wilfred Owen sullen smile hell All I ask is to be held above the barren wastes of want. Wilfred Owen barren waste want The universal pervasion of ugliness, hideous landscapes, vile noises, foul language...everything. Unnatural, broken, blasted; the distortion of the dead, whose unburiable bodies sit outside the dug outs all day, all night, the most execrable sights on earth. In poetry we call them the most glorious. Wilfred Owen broken sight night Courage was mine, and I had mystery, Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery: To miss the march of this retreating world Into vain citadels that are not walled. Wilfred Owen mastery missing world Winter Song The browns, the olives, and the yellows died, And were swept up to heaven; where they glowed Each dawn and set of sun till Christmastide, And when the land lay pale for them, pale-snowed, Fell back, and down the snow-drifts flamed and flowed. From off your face, into the winds of winter, The sun-brown and the summer-gold are blowing; But they shall gleam with spiritual glinter, When paler beauty on your brows falls snowing, And through those snows my looks shall be soft-going. Wilfred Owen spiritual summer beauty Happy are men who yet before they are killed Wilfred Owen fear running war Sweet and fitting it is to die for the fatherland. Wilfred Owen fatherland fitting sweet
