Quotes by Wilfred Owen

“Now rather thank I God there is no riskOf gravers scoring it with florid screed.Let my inscription be this soldiers disc.Wear it, sweet friend. Inscribe no date nor deed.But may thy heart-beat kiss it, night and day,Until the name grow blurred and fade away.”

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

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 disappointed shells that dropped 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 floundering 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 devils 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.

Red lips are not so red as the stained stones kissed by the English dead.

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.

All a poet can do today is warn.

What passing bells for these who die as cattle?Only the monstrous anger of the guns.Only the stuttering rifles rapid rattleCan patter out their hasty orisons.No mockeries now 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.

But the old man would not so, but slew his son,And half the seed of Europe, one by one.

Escape? There is one unwatched way: your eyes. O Beauty! Keep me good that secret gate.

Oh, Death was never enemy of ours!We laughed at him, we leagued with him, old chum.No soldiers paid to kick against His powers.We laughed, — knowing that better men would come,And greater wars: when each proud fighter bragsHe wars on Death, for lives; not men, for flags.

Through the dense din, I say, we heard him shoutI see your lights! But ours had long died out.

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.

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

And Death fell with me, like a deepening moan.And He, picking a manner of worm, which half had hidIts 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.

Some say God caught them even before they fell.

As bronze may be much beautified by lying in the dark damp soil, so men who fade in dust of warfare fade fairer, and sorrow blooms their soul.

Hes lost his colour very far from here,Poured it down shell-holes till the veins ran dry

Those who have no hope pass their old age shrouded with an inward gloom.

My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity.

Flying is the only active profession I would ever continue with enthusiasm after the War.