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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
Subjects
Poetry
War
Pity
Subject
Concerned

More quotes by 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 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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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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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 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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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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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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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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My subject is war, and the pity of war.
Wilfred Owen
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All theological lore is becoming distasteful to me.
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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When I begin to eliminate from the list all those professions which are impossible from a financial point of view and then those which I feel disinclined to-it leaves nothing
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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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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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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I find purer philosophy in a Poem than in a Conclusion of Geometry, a chemical analysis, or a physical law
Wilfred Owen
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And Death fell with me, like a deepening moan. And He, picking a manner of worm, which half had hid Its bruises in the earth, but crawled no further, Showed me its feet, the feet of many men, And the fresh-severed head of it, my head.
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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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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Sweet and fitting it is to die for the fatherland.
Wilfred Owen