Quote

All the poet can do today is warn. That is why true Poets must be truthful.

Wilfred Owen

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Wilfred Owen
Age: 25 †
Born: 1893
Born: March 18
Died: 1918
Died: November 4
Poet
Writer
Oswestry
Shropshire
Wilfred Edward Salter Owen
Owen
Poet
True
Truth
Today
Must
Warn
Truthful
Poets

More quotes by Wilfred Owen

Image
Sweet and fitting it is to die for the fatherland.
Wilfred Owen
Image
All a poet can do today is warn.
Wilfred Owen
Image
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
Image
Was it for this the clay grew tall?
Wilfred Owen
Image
Numbers of the old people cannot read. Those who can seldom do
Wilfred Owen
Image
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.
Wilfred Owen
Image
I am not concerned with Poetry. My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity. Yet these elegies are to this generation in no sense conciliatory. They may be to the next. All a poet can do today is warn. That is why the true Poets must be truthful.
Wilfred Owen
Image
My soul's a little grief, grappling your chest, To climb your throat on sobs easily chased On other sighs and wiped by fresher winds.
Wilfred Owen
Image
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
Image
These men are worth your tears. You are not worth their merriment.
Wilfred Owen
Image
I, too, saw God through mud
Wilfred Owen
Image
Never fear: Thank Home, and Poetry, and the Force behind both.
Wilfred Owen
Image
As bronze may be much beautified by lying in the dark damp soil, so men who fade in dust of warfare fade fairer, and sorrow blooms their soul.
Wilfred Owen
Image
For by my glee might many men have laughed, And of my weeping may something have been left, Which must die now.
Wilfred Owen
Image
Was it for this the clay grew tall? O what made fatuous sunbeams toil To break earth's sleep at all?
Wilfred Owen
Image
Soldiers may grow a soul when turned to fronds, But here the thing's best left at home with friends.
Wilfred Owen
Image
Red lips are not so red as the stained stones kissed by the English dead.
Wilfred Owen
Image
Ambition may be defined as the willingness to receive any number of hits on the nose.
Wilfred Owen
Image
Whatever mourns when many leave these shores: Whatever shares The eternal reciprocity of tears.
Wilfred Owen
Image
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