Wilfred Owen

“I have perceived much beauty in the hoarse oaths that kept our courage straight.”

“What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?”

“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.”

“My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity.”

“Shall life renew these bodies? Of a truth, All death will he annul.”

“I am the enemy you killed, my friend.”

“Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling.”

“Move him into the sun— Gently its touch awoke him once.”

“If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs.”

“The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori.”

“Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge.”

“Foreheads of men have bled where no wounds were.”

“Red lips are not so red As the stained stones kissed by the English dead.”

“All a poet can do today is warn.”

“Or watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin.”

“Let us sleep now...”

“Courage was mine, and I had mystery; Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery.”

“Was it for this the clay grew tall?”

“I, too, saw God through mud.”