Wilfred Owen: Poems

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“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 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 tired, outstripped Five-Nines 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 flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .

Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,

As under I 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,

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.

“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 orisons.

No mockeries for them from prayers or 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 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.

“Strange Meeting”

It seemed that out of battle I escaped

Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped

Through caverns which titanic wars had groined,

Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned,

Too fast in sleep or death to be bestirred.

Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared

With piteous recognition in fixed eyes,

Lifting distressful hands as if to bless.

And by his smile I knew that sullen hall.

By his dead smile I knew we stood in Hell.

With a thousand pains that vision's face was grained,

Yet no blood reached there from the upper ground,

And no guns whooped, or down the flues made moan.

“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 hope also; I went hunting wild

After the wildest beauty in the world,

Which lies not calm in eyes, or braided hair,

But mocks the steady running of the hour,

And if it grieves, grieves richlier than here.

For of my glee might many men have laughed,

And of my weeping something had been left

Which must die now. I mean the truth untold:

The pity of war, the pity war distilled.

Now men will go content with what we spoiled,

Or, discontent, boil bloody, and be spilled.

They will be swift, with swiftness of the tigress.

None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress.

Courage was mine, and I had mystery;

Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery

To miss the march of this retreating world

Into vain citadels that are not walled.

Then, when much blood had clogged their chariots 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.

Foreheads of men have bled where no wounds were.

I am the enemy you killed, my friend.

I knew you in this dark—for so you frowned

Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed.

I parried, but my hands were loath and cold.

Let us sleep now. . .”

 

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Source: Wilfred Owen. Poems. New York: Viking, 1921.