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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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Wilfred Owen
Age: 25 †
Born: 1893
Born: March 18
Died: 1918
Died: November 4
Poet
Writer
Oswestry
Shropshire
Wilfred Edward Salter Owen
Owen
Pity
Subject
Concerned
Subjects
Poetry
War

More quotes by Wilfred Owen

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The centuries will burn rich loads With which we groaned, Whose warmth shall lull their dreaming lids, While songs are crooned: But they will not dream of us poor lads, Left in the ground.
Wilfred Owen
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After all my years of playing soldiers, and then of reading History, I have almost a mania to be in the East, to see fighting, and to serve.
Wilfred Owen
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Heart, you were never hot Nor large, nor full like hearts made great with shot
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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Walking abroad, one is the admiration of all little boys, and meets an approving glance from every eye of elderly.
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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The old Lie:Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori.
Wilfred Owen
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Children are not meant to be studied, but enjoyed. Only by studying to be pleased do we understand them.
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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A Poem does not grow by jerks. As trees in Spring produce a new ring of tissue, so does every poet put forth a fresh outlay of stuff at the same season.
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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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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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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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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So secretly, like wrongs hushed-up, they went.
Wilfred Owen
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Sweet and fitting it is to die for the fatherland.
Wilfred Owen
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The marvel is that we did not all die of cold. As a matter of fact, only one of my party actually froze to death before he could be got back, but I am not able to tell how many have ended up in hospital. We were marooned in a frozen desert. There was not a sign of life on the horizon and a thousand signs of death.
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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If I have to be a soldier I must be a good one, anything else is unthinkable
Wilfred Owen