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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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Wilfred Owen
Age: 25 †
Born: 1893
Born: March 18
Died: 1918
Died: November 4
Poet
Writer
Oswestry
Shropshire
Wilfred Edward Salter Owen
Owen
Youth
Boys
Grievous
Happiness
Sadder
Hope
Griefs
Yearning
Sadness
Expectations
Grief

More quotes by Wilfred Owen

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If I have to be a soldier I must be a good one, anything else is unthinkable
Wilfred Owen
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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
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What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
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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I don't ask myself, is the life congenial to me? But, am I fitted for, am I called to, the Ministry?
Wilfred Owen
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My subject is war, and the pity of war.
Wilfred Owen
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Numbers of the old people cannot read. Those who can seldom do
Wilfred Owen
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Was it for this the clay grew tall? O what made fatuous sunbeams toil To break earth's sleep at all?
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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The Young Soldier It is not death Without hereafter To one in dearth Of life and its laughter, Nor the sweet murder Dealt slow and even Unto the martyr Smiling at heaven: It is the smile Faint as a (waning) myth, Faint, and exceeding small On a boy's murdered mouth.
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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All theological lore is becoming distasteful to me.
Wilfred Owen
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These men are worth your tears. You are not worth their merriment.
Wilfred Owen
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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
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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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For by my glee might many men have laughed, And of my weeping may something have been left, Which must die now.
Wilfred Owen
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The English say, Yours Truly, and mean it. The Italians say, I kiss your feet, and mean, I kick your head.
Wilfred Owen
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I tried to peg out soldierly,--no use! One dies of war like any old disease.
Wilfred Owen
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Never fear: Thank Home, and Poetry, and the Force behind both.
Wilfred Owen
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I am only conscious of any satisfaction in Scientific Reading or thinking when it rounds off into a poetical generality and vagueness.
Wilfred Owen