Wilfred Owen

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 orisions. 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 in the holy glimmers of good-byes. 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.

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. Love, your eyes lose lure When I behold eyes blinded in my stead! Your slender attitude Trembles not exquistite like limps 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 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.

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 nuzzle 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 thick of his curls.

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 out 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.

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