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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
Sadness
Expectations
Grief
Youth
Boys
Grievous
Happiness
Sadder
Hope
Griefs
Yearning

More quotes by 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 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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If I have to be a soldier I must be a good one, anything else is unthinkable
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 thought of all that worked dark pits Of war, and died Digging the rock where Death reputes Peace lies indeed.
Wilfred Owen
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All I ask is to be held above the barren wastes of want.
Wilfred Owen
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All theological lore is becoming distasteful to me.
Wilfred Owen
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Above all I am not concerned with Poetry. My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity.
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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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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My subject is war, and the pity of war.
Wilfred Owen
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Those who, like the beasts, have no such Hope, pass their old age shrouded with an inward gloom.
Wilfred Owen
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So secretly, like wrongs hushed-up, they went.
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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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
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The war affects me less than it ought. But I can do no service to anybody by agitating for news or making dole over the slaughter.
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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Do you know what would hold me together on a battlefield? The sense that I was perpetuating the language in which Keats and the rest of them wrote!
Wilfred Owen
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I was a boy when I first realized that the fullest life liveable was a Poet's
Wilfred Owen
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Heart, you were never hot Nor large, nor full like hearts made great with shot
Wilfred Owen