Quote

Was it for this the clay grew tall? O what made fatuous sunbeams toil To break earth's sleep at all?

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
Earth
Sunbeams
Made
Futility
Clay
Toil
Tall
Grew
Sleep
Break
Fatuous

More quotes by Wilfred Owen

Image
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
Image
I am only conscious of any satisfaction in Scientific Reading or thinking when it rounds off into a poetical generality and vagueness.
Wilfred Owen
Image
I tried to peg out soldierly,--no use! One dies of war like any old disease.
Wilfred Owen
Image
The English say, Yours Truly, and mean it. The Italians say, I kiss your feet, and mean, I kick your head.
Wilfred Owen
Image
All the poet can do today is warn. That is why true Poets must be truthful.
Wilfred Owen
Image
Red lips are not so red as the stained stones kissed by the English dead.
Wilfred Owen
Image
Strange friend,' I said,'here is no cause to mourn.' 'None,'said the other,'save the undone years, The hopelessness.Whatever hope is yours Was my life also I went hunting wild After the wildest beauty in the world.
Wilfred Owen
Image
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
Image
Whatever mourns when many leave these shores: Whatever shares The eternal reciprocity of tears.
Wilfred Owen
Image
Flying is the only active profession I could ever continue with enthusiasm after the War.
Wilfred Owen
Image
Walking abroad, one is the admiration of all little boys, and meets an approving glance from every eye of elderly.
Wilfred Owen
Image
Heart, you were never hot Nor large, nor full like hearts made great with shot
Wilfred Owen
Image
I, too, saw God through mud
Wilfred Owen
Image
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
Image
Happy are men who yet before they are killed Can let their veins run cold.
Wilfred Owen
Image
Numbers of the old people cannot read. Those who can seldom do
Wilfred Owen
Image
So secretly, like wrongs hushed-up, they went.
Wilfred Owen
Image
These men are worth your tears. You are not worth their merriment.
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
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