Wilfred Owen
Wilfred Owen
Wilfred Edward Salter Owen MCwas an English poet and soldier, one of the leading poets of the First World War. His shocking, realistic war poetry on the horrors of trenches and gas warfare was heavily influenced by his friend and mentor Siegfried Sassoon, and stood in stark contrast both to the public perception of war at the time and to the confidently patriotic verse written by earlier war poets such as Rupert Brooke. Among his best-known works – most of which...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth18 March 1893
children war eye
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.
want waste barren
All I ask is to be held above the barren wastes of want.
poetry warning today
All a poet can do today is warn.
ambition numbers may
Ambition may be defined as the willingness to receive any number of hits on the nose.
ask congenial fitted life
I don't ask myself, Is the life congenial to me? but, Am I fitted for,am I called to, the Ministry?
good
If I have got to be a soldier, I must be a good one, anything else is unthinkable.
war pity poetry-is
Above all I am not concerned with Poetry. My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity.
war tunnels profound
It seemed that out of battle I escaped Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped Through granites which titanic wars had groined.
war feelings doubt
And some cease feeling Even themselves or for themselves. Dullness best solves The tease and doubt of shelling
war news slaughter
The war effects me less than it ought. I can do no service to anybody by agitating for news or making dole over the slaughter
war party horizon
The marvel is that we did not all die of cold. As a matter of fact, only one of my party actually froze to death before he could be got back, but I am not able to tell how many have ended up in hospital. We were marooned in a frozen desert. There was not a sign of life on the horizon and a thousand signs of death.
war moon men
No-man's land under snow is like the face of the moon: chaotic, crater ridden, uninhabitable, awful, the abode of madness.
sweet lying war
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.
Be bullied, be outraged, be killed, but do not kill.