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
inevitable influence interests isolation mixing opposite persons serious tend whose
The isolation from any whose interests are the same as mine, the constant, inevitable mixing with persons whose influence will tend in the opposite direction-this is a serious drawback.
creep drums few poetry village
A few, a few, too few for drums and yells,May creep back, silent, to still village wellsUp half-known roads.
poetry warning today
All a poet can do today is warn.
beauty summer spiritual
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.
grief wind soul
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.
hunting years world
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.
beauty war storm
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.
tears share reciprocity
Whatever mourns when many leave these shores: Whatever shares The eternal reciprocity of tears.
numbers people old-people
Numbers of the old people cannot read. Those who can seldom do
fighting clay sunbeams
Was it for this the clay grew tall?
hope grief sadness
The old happiness is unreturning. Boy's griefs are not so grievous as youth's yearning. Boys have no sadness sadder than our hope.
together language holding-on
Do you know what would hold me together on a battlefield? The sense that I was perpetuating the language in which Keats and the rest of them wrote!
ministry asks
I don't ask myself, is the life congenial to me? But, am I fitted for, am I called to, the Ministry?
bullied outraged
Be bullied, be outraged, by killed, but do not kill.