Wilfred Owen

We'd found an old Boche dug-out, and he knew,
And gave us hell, for shell on frantic
Hammered on top, but never quite burst through
Rain, guttering down in waterfalls of slime,

Not one corner of a foreign
But a span as wide as Europe;
An appearance of a titan's grave,
And the length thereof a thousand miles,

There was a whispering in my hearth,
A sigh of the coal
Grown wistful of a former
It might recall

Sing me at morn but only with your laugh;
Even as Spring that laugheth into leaf;
Even as Love that laugheth after Life
Sing me but only with your speech all day,

Budging the sluggard ripples of the Somme,
A barge round old Cérisy slowly slewed
Softly her engines down the current screwed,
And chuckled softly with contented hum,

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 no...

So neck to neck and obstinate knee to
Wrestled those two; and peerless
Could not prevail nor catch at any vantage;
But those huge hands which small had strangled

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 Whi...

All sounds have been as music to my listening:
Pacific lamentations of slow bells,
The crunch of boots on blue snow rosy-glistening,
Shuffle of autumn leaves; and all farewells:

'You
What d'you mean by this
' I rapped
'You dare come on parade like this

After the blast of lightning from the east,
The flourish of loud clouds, the Chariot throne,
After the drums of time have rolled and
And from the bronze west long retreat is blown,

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 a...