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All a poet can do today is warn.

Wilfred Owen

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Wilfred Owen
Age: 25 †
Born: 1893
Born: March 18
Died: 1918
Died: November 4
Poet
Writer
Oswestry
Shropshire
Wilfred Edward Salter Owen
Owen
Warning
Poet
Poetry
Today
Warn

More quotes by Wilfred Owen

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Soldiers may grow a soul when turned to fronds, But here the thing's best left at home with friends.
Wilfred Owen
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Happy are men who yet before they are killed Can let their veins run cold.
Wilfred Owen
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My friend, you would not tell with such high zest to children ardent for some desperate glory. The old lie: It is sweet and fitting that you should die for your country.
Wilfred Owen
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Ambition may be defined as the willingness to receive any number of hits on the nose.
Wilfred Owen
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Flying is the only active profession I could ever continue with enthusiasm after the War.
Wilfred Owen
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And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall, By his dead smile I knew we stood in Hell.
Wilfred Owen
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The universal pervasion of ugliness, hideous landscapes, vile noises, foul language...everything. Unnatural, broken, blasted the distortion of the dead, whose unburiable bodies sit outside the dug outs all day, all night, the most execrable sights on earth. In poetry we call them the most glorious.
Wilfred Owen
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Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot-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.
Wilfred Owen
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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.
Wilfred Owen
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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.
Wilfred Owen
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I, too, saw God through mud
Wilfred Owen
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The old happiness is unreturning. Boy's griefs are not so grievous as youth's yearning. Boys have no sadness sadder than our hope.
Wilfred Owen
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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.
Wilfred Owen
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Was it for this the clay grew tall?
Wilfred Owen
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It seemed that out of battle I escaped Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped Through granites which titanic wars had groined.
Wilfred Owen
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Dead men may envy living mites in cheese, Or good germs even. Microbes have their joys, And subdivide, and never come to death.
Wilfred Owen
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Red lips are not so red as the stained stones kissed by the English dead.
Wilfred Owen
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I dreamed kind Jesus fouled the big-gun gears and caused a permanent stoppage in all bolts and buckled with a smile Mausers and Colts and rusted every bayonet with His tears.
Wilfred Owen
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Escape? There is one unwatched way: your eyes. O Beauty! Keep me good that secret gate.
Wilfred Owen
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For by my glee might many men have laughed, And of my weeping may something have been left, Which must die now.
Wilfred Owen