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diff --git a/old/1034.txt b/old/1034.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b057966 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/1034.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1676 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Poems, by Wilfred Owen + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Poems + +Author: Wilfred Owen + +Posting Date: August 10, 2008 [EBook #1034] +Release Date: September, 1997 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS *** + + + + +Produced by Alan R. Light, and Gary M. Johnson + + + + + +POEMS + + +by Wilfred Owen + + +With an Introduction by Siegfried Sassoon + + + + +[Note on text: Italicized words or phrases are capitalized. +Lines longer than 78 characters are broken and the continuation +is indented two spaces.] + + + + +Introduction + + +In writing an Introduction such as this it is good to be brief. The +poems printed in this book need no preliminary commendations from me or +anyone else. The author has left us his own fragmentary but impressive +Foreword; this, and his Poems, can speak for him, backed by the +authority of his experience as an infantry soldier, and sustained by +nobility and originality of style. All that was strongest in Wilfred +Owen survives in his poems; any superficial impressions of his +personality, any records of his conversation, behaviour, or appearance, +would be irrelevant and unseemly. The curiosity which demands such +morsels would be incapable of appreciating the richness of his work. + +The discussion of his experiments in assonance and dissonance (of which +'Strange Meeting' is the finest example) may be left to the professional +critics of verse, the majority of whom will be more preoccupied with +such technical details than with the profound humanity of the self- +revelation manifested in such magnificent lines as those at the end of +his 'Apologia pro Poemate Meo', and in that other poem which he named +'Greater Love'. + +The importance of his contribution to the literature of the War cannot +be decided by those who, like myself, both admired him as a poet and +valued him as a friend. His conclusions about War are so entirely in +accordance with my own that I cannot attempt to judge his work with any +critical detachment. I can only affirm that he was a man of absolute +integrity of mind. He never wrote his poems (as so many war-poets did) +to make the effect of a personal gesture. He pitied others; he did not +pity himself. In the last year of his life he attained a clear vision +of what he needed to say, and these poems survive him as his true and +splendid testament. + +Wilfred Owen was born at Oswestry on 18th March 1893. He was educated +at the Birkenhead Institute, and matriculated at London University in +1910. In 1913 he obtained a private tutorship near Bordeaux, where he +remained until 1915. During this period he became acquainted with the +eminent French poet, Laurent Tailhade, to whom he showed his early +verses, and from whom he received considerable encouragement. In 1915, +in spite of delicate health, he joined the Artists' Rifles O.T.C., was +gazetted to the Manchester Regiment, and served with their 2nd Battalion +in France from December 1916 to June 1917, when he was invalided home. +Fourteen months later he returned to the Western Front and served with +the same Battalion, ultimately commanding a Company. + +He was awarded the Military Cross for gallantry while taking part in +some heavy fighting on 1st October. He was killed on 4th November 1918, +while endeavouring to get his men across the Sambre Canal. + +A month before his death he wrote to his mother: "My nerves are in +perfect order. I came out again in order to help these boys; directly, +by leading them as well as an officer can; indirectly, by watching their +sufferings that I may speak of them as well as a pleader can." Let his +own words be his epitaph:-- + + "Courage was mine, and I had mystery; + Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery." + + Siegfried Sassoon. + + + + +POEMS + + + + +Preface + + + +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. + 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. + + + +Contents: + + Preface + Strange Meeting + Greater Love + Apologia pro Poemate Meo + The Show + Mental Cases + Parable of the Old Men and the Young + Arms and the Boy + Anthem for Doomed Youth + The Send-off + Insensibility + Dulce et Decorum est + The Sentry + The Dead-Beat + Exposure + Spring Offensive + The Chances + S. I. W. + Futility + Smile, Smile, Smile + Conscious + A Terre + Wild with all Regrets + Disabled + The End + + + + + +Strange Meeting + + + + It seemed that out of the battle I escaped + Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped + Through granites which Titanic wars had groined. + Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned, + Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred. + Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared + With piteous recognition in fixed eyes, + Lifting distressful hands as if to bless. + And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall; + With a thousand fears that vision's face was grained; + Yet no blood reached there from the upper ground, + And no guns thumped, or down the flues made moan. + "Strange, friend," 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. + Or, discontent, boil bloody, and be spilled. + They will be swift with swiftness of the tigress, + None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress. + 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. + Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot-wheels + I would go up and wash them from sweet wells, + Even with truths that lie too deep for taint. + I would have poured my spirit without stint + But not through wounds; not on the cess of war. + Foreheads of men have bled where no wounds were. + I am the enemy you killed, my friend. + I knew you in this dark; for so you frowned + Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed. + I parried; but my hands were loath and cold. + Let us sleep now . . ." + + + (This poem was found among the author's papers. + It ends on this strange note.) + + + *Another Version* + + 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, + Wisdom is mine, and I have mystery. + We two will stay behind and keep our troth. + 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. + Miss we the march of this retreating world + Into old citadels that are not walled. + Let us lie out and hold the open truth. + Then when their blood hath clogged the chariot wheels + We will go up and wash them from deep wells. + What though we sink from men as pitchers falling + Many shall raise us up to be their filling + Even from wells we sunk too deep for war + And filled by brows that bled where no wounds were. + + + *Alternative line--* + + Even as One who bled where no wounds were. + + + + +Greater Love + + + + Red lips are not so red + As the stained stones kissed by the English dead. + 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. + + 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. + + Heart, you were never hot, + Nor large, nor full like hearts made great with shot; + And though your hand be pale, + Paler are all which trail + Your cross through flame and hail: + Weep, you may weep, for you may touch them not. + + + + +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, + + By 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. + + + November 1917. + + + + +The Show + + + + 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, + Gray, cratered like the moon with hollow woe, + And fitted with great pocks and scabs of plaques. + + Across its beard, that horror of harsh wire, + There moved thin caterpillars, slowly uncoiled. + It seemed they pushed themselves to be as plugs + Of ditches, where they writhed and shrivelled, killed. + + By them had slimy paths been trailed and scraped + Round myriad warts that might be little hills. + + From gloom's last dregs these long-strung creatures crept, + And vanished out of dawn down hidden holes. + + (And smell came up from those foul openings + As out of mouths, or deep wounds deepening.) + + On dithering feet upgathered, more and more, + Brown strings towards strings of gray, with bristling spines, + All migrants from green fields, intent on mire. + + Those that were gray, of more abundant spawns, + Ramped on the rest and ate them and were eaten. + + I saw their bitten backs curve, loop, and straighten, + I watched those agonies curl, lift, and flatten. + + Whereat, in terror what that sight might mean, + I reeled and shivered earthward like a feather. + + And Death fell with me, like a deepening moan. + And He, picking a manner of worm, which half had hid + Its bruises in the earth, but crawled no further, + Showed me its feet, the feet of many men, + And the fresh-severed head of it, my head. + + + + +Mental Cases + + + + Who are these? Why sit they here in twilight? + Wherefore rock they, purgatorial shadows, + Drooping tongues from jaws that slob their relish, + Baring teeth that leer like skulls' tongues wicked? + Stroke on stroke of pain,--but what slow panic, + Gouged these chasms round their fretted sockets? + Ever from their hair and through their hand palms + Misery swelters. 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. + + Therefore still their eyeballs shrink tormented + Back into their brains, because on their sense + Sunlight seems a bloodsmear; night comes blood-black; + Dawn breaks open like a wound that bleeds afresh + --Thus their heads wear this hilarious, hideous, + Awful falseness of set-smiling corpses. + --Thus their hands are plucking at each other; + Picking at the rope-knouts of their scourging; + Snatching after us who smote them, brother, + Pawing us who dealt them war and madness. + + + + +Parable of the Old Men and the Young + + + + 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, + Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father, + Behold the preparations, fire and iron, + But where the lamb for this burnt-offering? + Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps, + And builded parapets and trenches there, + And stretch\ed forth the knife to slay his son. + When lo! an angel called him out of heaven, + Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad, + Neither do anything to him. 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. . . . + + + + +Arms and the Boy + + + + 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; + And thinly drawn with famishing for flesh. + + Lend him to stroke these blind, blunt bullet-heads + Which long to muzzle in the hearts of lads. + Or give him cartridges of fine zinc teeth, + Sharp with the sharpness of grief and death. + + For his teeth seem for laughing round an apple. + There lurk no claws behind his fingers supple; + And God will grow no talons at his heels, + Nor antlers through the thickness of his curls. + + + + +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. + + What candles may be held to speed them all? + 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. + + + + +The Send-off + + + + Down the close, darkening lanes they sang their way + To the siding-shed, + And lined the train with faces grimly gay. + + Their breasts were stuck all white with wreath and spray + As men's are, dead. + + Dull porters watched them, and a casual tramp + Stood staring hard, + Sorry to miss them from the upland camp. + Then, unmoved, signals nodded, and a lamp + Winked to the guard. + + So secretly, like wrongs hushed-up, they went. + They were not ours: + We never heard to which front these were sent. + + Nor there if they yet mock what women meant + Who gave them flowers. + + Shall they return to beatings of great bells + In wild trainloads? + 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. + The front line withers, + But they are troops who fade, not flowers + For poets' tearful fooling: + 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. + And terror's first constriction over, + Their hearts remain small drawn. + 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. + Happy the lad whose mind was never trained: + His days are worth forgetting more than not. + 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; + Nor sad, nor proud, + Nor curious at all. + He cannot tell + Old men's placidity from his. + + + VI + + But cursed are dullards whom no cannon stuns, + That they should be as stones. + Wretched are they, and mean + With paucity that never was simplicity. + By choice they made themselves immune + To pity and whatever mourns in man + Before the last sea and the hapless stars; + Whatever mourns when many leave these shores; + Whatever shares + The eternal reciprocity of tears. + + + + +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. + Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots, + But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind; + Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots + Of gas-shells dropping softly behind. + + Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!--An ecstasy of fumbling + Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time, + But someone still was yelling out and stumbling + And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime.-- + Dim through the misty panes and thick green light, + As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. + + In all my dreams before my helpless sight + He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning. + + 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 + 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. + + + + +The Sentry + + + + 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. + Rain, guttering down in waterfalls of slime + Kept slush waist high, that rising hour by hour, + Choked up the steps too thick with clay to climb. + What murk of air remained stank old, and sour + With fumes of whizz-bangs, and the smell of men + Who'd lived there years, and left their curse in the den, + If not their corpses. . . . + There we herded from the blast + Of whizz-bangs, but one found our door at last. + Buffeting eyes and breath, snuffing the candles. + And thud! flump! thud! down the steep steps came thumping + And splashing in the flood, deluging muck-- + The sentry's body; then his rifle, handles + Of old Boche bombs, and mud in ruck on ruck. + We dredged him up, for killed, until he whined + "O sir, my eyes--I'm blind--I'm blind, I'm blind!" + Coaxing, I held a flame against his lids + And said if he could see the least blurred light + He was not blind; in time he'd get all right. + "I can't," he sobbed. Eyeballs, huge-bulged like squids + Watch my dreams still; but I forgot him there + In posting next for duty, and sending a scout + To beg a stretcher somewhere, and floundering about + To other posts under the shrieking air. + + Those other wretches, how they bled and spewed, + And one who would have drowned himself for good,-- + I try not to remember these things now. + Let dread hark back for one word only: how + Half-listening to that sentry's moans and jumps, + And the wild chattering of his broken teeth, + Renewed most horribly whenever crumps + Pummelled the roof and slogged the air beneath-- + Through the dense din, I say, we heard him shout + "I see your lights!" But ours had long died out. + + + + +The Dead-Beat + + + + He dropped,--more sullenly than wearily, + Lay stupid like a cod, heavy like meat, + And none of us could kick him to his feet; + Just blinked at my revolver, blearily; + --Didn't appear to know a war was on, + Or see the blasted trench at which he stared. + "I'll do 'em in," he whined, "If this hand's spared, + I'll murder them, I will." + + A low voice said, + "It's Blighty, p'raps, he sees; his pluck's all gone, + Dreaming of all the valiant, that AREN'T dead: + Bold uncles, smiling ministerially; + Maybe his brave young wife, getting her fun + In some new home, improved materially. + It's not these stiffs have crazed him; nor the Hun." + + 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. Hooray!" + + + + +Exposure + + + + I + + Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knife us . . . + Wearied we keep awake because the night is silent . . . + Low drooping flares confuse our memory of the salient . . . + Worried by silence, sentries whisper, curious, nervous, + But nothing happens. + + 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. + Dawn massing in the east her melancholy army + Attacks once more in ranks on shivering ranks of gray, + But nothing happens. + + Sudden successive flights of bullets streak the silence. + 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? + + Slowly our ghosts drag home: glimpsing the sunk fires glozed + With crusted dark-red jewels; crickets jingle there; + For hours the innocent mice rejoice: the house is theirs; + 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; + Therefore, not loath, we lie out here; therefore were born, + For love of God seems dying. + + To-night, His frost will fasten on this mud and us, + Shrivelling many hands and puckering foreheads crisp. + The burying-party, picks and shovels in their shaking grasp, + Pause over half-known faces. All their eyes are ice, + But nothing happens. + + + + +Spring Offensive + + + + Halted against the shade of a last hill, + They fed, and, lying easy, were at ease + And, finding comfortable chests and knees + Carelessly slept. But many there stood still + To face the stark, blank sky beyond the ridge, + Knowing their feet had come to the end of the world. + + Marvelling they stood, and watched the long grass swirled + By the May breeze, murmurous with wasp and midge, + For though the summer oozed into their veins + Like the injected drug for their bones' pains, + Sharp on their souls hung the imminent line of grass, + Fearfully flashed the sky's mysterious glass. + + Hour after hour they ponder the warm field-- + And the far valley behind, where the buttercups + Had blessed with gold their slow boots coming up, + Where even the little brambles would not yield, + But clutched and clung to them like sorrowing hands; + They breathe like trees unstirred. + + Till like a cold gust thrilled the little word + At which each body and its soul begird + And tighten them for battle. No alarms + Of bugles, no high flags, no clamorous haste-- + Only a lift and flare of eyes that faced + The sun, like a friend with whom their love is done. + O larger shone that smile against the sun,-- + Mightier than his whose bounty these have spurned. + + So, soon they topped the hill, and raced together + Over an open stretch of herb and heather + Exposed. And instantly the whole sky burned + With fury against them; and soft sudden cups + Opened in thousands for their blood; and the green slopes + Chasmed and steepened sheer to infinite space. + + Of them who running on that last high place + Leapt to swift unseen bullets, or went up + On the hot blast and fury of hell's upsurge, + Or plunged and fell away past this world's verge, + Some say God caught them even before they fell. + + But what say such as from existence' brink + Ventured but drave too swift to sink. + 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? + + + + +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. + + + + +S. I. W. + + "I will to the King, + And offer him consolation in his trouble, + For that man there has set his teeth to die, + And being one that hates obedience, + Discipline, and orderliness of life, + I cannot mourn him." + W. B. Yeats. + + + + Patting goodbye, doubtless they told the lad + He'd always show the Hun a brave man's face; + Father would sooner him dead than in disgrace,-- + Was proud to see him going, aye, and glad. + Perhaps his Mother whimpered how she'd fret + Until he got a nice, safe wound to nurse. + Sisters would wish girls too could shoot, charge, curse, . . . + Brothers--would send his favourite cigarette, + Each week, month after month, they wrote the same, + Thinking him sheltered in some Y.M. Hut, + Where once an hour a bullet missed its aim + And misses teased the hunger of his brain. + His eyes grew old with wincing, and his hand + Reckless with ague. Courage leaked, as sand + From the best sandbags after years of rain. + But never leave, wound, fever, trench-foot, shock, + Untrapped the wretch. And death seemed still withheld + For torture of lying machinally shelled, + At the pleasure of this world's Powers who'd run amok. + + He'd seen men shoot their hands, on night patrol, + Their people never knew. Yet they were vile. + "Death sooner than dishonour, that's the style!" + So Father said. + + One dawn, our wire patrol + Carried him. This time, Death had not missed. + We could do nothing, but wipe his bleeding cough. + Could it be accident?--Rifles go off . . . + Not sniped? No. (Later they found the English ball.) + + It was the reasoned crisis of his soul. + Against the fires that would not burn him whole + But kept him for death's perjury and scoff + And life's half-promising, and both their riling. + + With him they buried the muzzle his teeth had kissed, + And truthfully wrote the Mother "Tim died smiling." + + + + +Futility + + + + Move him into the sun-- + Gently its touch awoke him once, + At home, whispering of fields unsown. + Always it woke him, even in France, + Until this morning and this snow. + If anything might rouse him now + The kind old sun will know. + + Think how it wakes the seeds-- + Woke, once, the clays of a cold star. + Are limbs so dear-achieved, are sides + Full-nerved,--still warm,--too hard to stir? + Was it for this the clay grew tall? + --O what made fatuous sunbeams toil + To break earth's sleep at all? + + + + +Smile, Smile, Smile + + + + Head to limp head, the sunk-eyed wounded scanned + Yesterday's Mail; the casualties (typed small) + And (large) Vast Booty from our Latest Haul. + Also, they read of Cheap Homes, not yet planned; + For, said the paper, "When this war is done + The men's first instinct will be making homes. + 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 must be solidly indemnified. + 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." + Nation?--The half-limbed readers did not chafe + But smiled at one another curiously + Like secret men who know their secret safe. + This is the thing they know and never speak, + That England one by one had fled to France + (Not many elsewhere now save under France). + Pictures of these broad smiles appear each week, + And people in whose voice real feeling rings + Say: How they smile! They're happy now, poor things. + + + 23rd September 1918. + + + + +Conscious + + + + 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. + A blind-cord drawls across the window-sill . . . + How smooth the floor of the ward is! what a rug! + And who's that talking, somewhere out of sight? + Why are they laughing? What's inside that jug? + "Nurse! Doctor!" "Yes; all right, all right." + + But sudden dusk bewilders all the air-- + There seems no time to want a drink of water. + Nurse looks so far away. And everywhere + Music and roses burnt through crimson slaughter. + Cold; cold; he's cold; and yet so hot: + And there's no light to see the voices by-- + No time to dream, and ask--he knows not what. + + + + +A Terre + + (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. + Both arms have mutinied against me--brutes. + My fingers fidget like ten idle brats. + + I tried to peg out soldierly--no use! + One dies of war like any old disease. + This bandage feels like pennies on my eyes. + I have my medals?--Discs to make eyes close. + My glorious ribbons?--Ripped from my own back + In scarlet shreds. (That's for your poetry book.) + + A short life and a merry one, my brick! + We used to say we'd hate to live dead old,-- + Yet now . . . I'd willingly be puffy, bald, + And patriotic. Buffers catch from boys + At least the jokes hurled at them. I suppose + Little I'd ever teach a son, but hitting, + Shooting, war, hunting, all the arts of hurting. + Well, that's what I learnt,--that, and making money. + Your fifty years ahead seem none too many? + Tell me how long I've got? God! For one year + To help myself to nothing more than air! + One Spring! Is one too good to spare, too long? + Spring wind would work its own way to my lung, + And grow me legs as quick as lilac-shoots. + My servant's lamed, but listen how he shouts! + When I'm lugged out, he'll still be good for that. + Here in this mummy-case, you know, I've thought + How well I might have swept his floors for ever, + I'd ask no night off when the bustle's over, + Enjoying so the dirt. Who's prejudiced + Against a grimed hand when his own's quite dust, + Less live than specks that in the sun-shafts turn, + Less warm than dust that mixes with arms' tan? + I'd love to be a sweep, now, black as Town, + Yes, or a muckman. Must I be his load? + + O Life, Life, let me breathe,--a dug-out rat! + 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. + "I shall be one with nature, herb, and stone." + Shelley would tell me. Shelley would be stunned; + The dullest Tommy hugs that fancy now. + "Pushing up daisies," is their creed, you know. + To grain, then, go my fat, to buds my sap, + For all the usefulness there is in soap. + D'you think the Boche will ever stew man-soup? + Some day, no doubt, if . . . + Friend, be very sure + I shall be better off with plants that share + More peaceably the meadow and the shower. + Soft rains will touch me,--as they could touch once, + And nothing but the sun shall make me ware. + Your guns may crash around me. I'll not hear; + Or, if I wince, I shall not know I wince. + Don't take my soul's poor comfort for your jest. + 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 can't read. There: it's no use. Take your book. + 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! + --Well, that's what I learnt. That, and making money. + Your fifty years in store seem none too many; + But I've five minutes. God! For just two years + To help myself to this good air of yours! + One Spring! Is one too hard to spare? Too long? + Spring air would find its own way to my lung, + And grow me legs as quick as lilac-shoots. + + Yes, there's the orderly. He'll change the sheets + When I'm lugged out, oh, couldn't I do that? + Here in this coffin of a bed, I've thought + I'd like to kneel and sweep his floors for ever,-- + And ask no nights off when the bustle's over, + For I'd enjoy the dirt; who's prejudiced + Against a grimed hand when his own's quite dust,-- + Less live than specks that in the sun-shafts turn? + Dear dust,--in rooms, on roads, on faces' tan! + I'd love to be a sweep's boy, black as Town; + Yes, or a muckman. Must I be his load? + A flea would do. If one chap wasn't bloody, + Or went stone-cold, I'd find another body. + + Which I shan't manage now. Unless it's yours. + I shall stay in you, friend, for some few hours. + You'll feel my heavy spirit chill your chest, + And climb your throat on sobs, until it's chased + On sighs, and wiped from off your lips by wind. + + I think on your rich breathing, brother, I'll be weaned + To do without what blood remained me from my wound. + + + 5th December 1917. + + + + +Disabled + + + + 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 + Voices of boys rang saddening like a hymn, + Voices of play and pleasure after day, + Till gathering sleep had mothered them from him. + + About this time Town used to swing so gay + When glow-lamps budded in the light-blue trees + And girls glanced lovelier as the air grew dim, + --In the old times, before he threw away his knees. + Now he will never feel again how slim + Girls' waists are, or how warm their subtle hands, + All of them touch him like some queer disease. + + There was an artist silly for his face, + For it was younger than his youth, last year. + Now he is old; his back will never brace; + 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. + One time he liked a bloodsmear down his leg, + After the matches carried shoulder-high. + It was after football, when he'd drunk a peg, + He thought he'd better join. He wonders why . . . + Someone had said he'd look a god in kilts. + + That's why; and maybe, too, to please his Meg, + Aye, that was it, to please the giddy jilts, + He asked to join. He didn't have to beg; + Smiling they wrote his lie; aged nineteen years. + Germans he scarcely thought of; and no fears + Of Fear came yet. He thought of jewelled hilts + For daggers in plaid socks; of smart salutes; + And care of arms; and leave; and pay arrears; + 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; and then inquired about his soul. + Now, he will spend a few sick years in Institutes, + And do what things the rules consider wise, + And take whatever pity they may dole. + To-night he noticed how the women's eyes + Passed from him to the strong men that were whole. + How cold and late it is! Why don't they come + And put him into bed? Why don't they come? + + + + +The End + + + + 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 + And from the bronze west long retreat is blown, + + Shall Life renew these bodies? Of a truth + All death will he annul, all tears assuage? + Or fill these void veins full again with youth + And wash with an immortal water age? + + When I do ask white Age, he saith not so,-- + "My head hangs weighed with snow." + And when I hearken to the Earth she saith + My fiery heart sinks aching. It is death. + Mine ancient scars shall not be glorified + Nor my titanic tears the seas be dried." + + + + + +[End of original text.] + + + + + +Appendix + + + +General Notes:-- + + +Due to the general circumstances surrounding Wilfred Owen, and his death +one week before the war ended, it should be noted that these poems are +not all in their final form. Owen had only had a few of his poems +published during his lifetime, and his papers were in a state of +disarray when Siegfried Sassoon, his friend and fellow poet, put +together this volume. The 1920 edition was the first edition of Owen's +poems, the 1921 reprint (of which this is a transcript) added one +more--and nothing else happened until Edmund Blunden's 1931 edition. +Even with that edition, there remained gaps, and several more editions +added more and more poems and fragments, in various forms, as it was +difficult to tell which of Owen's drafts were his final ones, until Jon +Stallworthy's "Complete Poems and Fragments" (1983) included all that +could be found, and tried to put them in chronological order, with the +latest revisions, etc. + +Therefore, it should not be surprising if some or most of these poems +differ from later editions. + + +After Owen's death, his writings gradually gained pre-eminence, so that, +although virtually unknown during the war, he came into high regard. +Benjamin Britten, the British composer who set nine of Owen's works as +the text of his "War Requiem" (shortly after the Second World War), +called Owen "by far our greatest war poet, and one of the most original +poets of this century." (Owen is especially noted for his use of +pararhyme.) Five of those nine texts are some form of poems included +here, to wit: 'Anthem for Doomed Youth', 'Futility', 'Parable of the Old +Men and the Young', 'The End', and 'Strange Meeting'. The other four +were '[Bugles Sang]', 'The Next War', 'Sonnet [Be slowly lifted up]' and +'At a Calvary Near the Ancre'--all of which the reader may wish to +pursue, being some of Owen's finest work. Fortunately, the poem which I +consider his best, and which is one of his most quoted--'Dulce et +Decorum est', is included in this volume. + + +Transcriber's Specific Notes:-- + +Blighty: England, or a wound that would take a soldier home (to England). + +S. I. W.: Self Inflicted Wound. + +Parable of the Old Men and the Young: A retold story from the Bible, +but with a different ending. The phrase "Abram bound the youth with +belts and straps" refers to the youth who went to war, with all their +equipment belted and strapped on. Other versions of this poem have an +additional line. + +Dulce et Decorum est: The phrase "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori" +is a Latin phrase from Horace, and translates literally something like +"Sweet and proper it is for your country (fatherland) to die." The poem +was originally intended to be addressed to an author who had written war +poems for children. "Dim through the misty panes . . ." should be +understood by anyone who has worn a gas mask. + +Alan R. Light. Monroe, North Carolina, July, 1997. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Poems, by Wilfred Owen + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS *** + +***** This file should be named 1034.txt or 1034.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/3/1034/ + +Produced by Alan R. Light, and Gary M. 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