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
Made
Futility
Clay
Toil
Tall
Grew
Sleep
Break
Fatuous
Earth
Sunbeams

More quotes by Wilfred Owen

Image
All I ask is to be held above the barren wastes of want.
Wilfred Owen
Image
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
Image
All the poet can do today is warn. That is why true Poets must be truthful.
Wilfred Owen
Image
Ambition may be defined as the willingness to receive any number of hits on the nose.
Wilfred Owen
Image
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
Image
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
Image
And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall, By his dead smile I knew we stood in Hell.
Wilfred Owen
Image
Sweet and fitting it is to die for the fatherland.
Wilfred Owen
Image
Numbers of the old people cannot read. Those who can seldom do
Wilfred Owen
Image
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
Image
Happy are men who yet before they are killed Can let their veins run cold.
Wilfred Owen
Image
I was a boy when I first realized that the fullest life liveable was a Poet's
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
Red lips are not so red as the stained stones kissed by the English dead.
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
Escape? There is one unwatched way: your eyes. O Beauty! Keep me good that secret gate.
Wilfred Owen
Image
The old Lie:Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori.
Wilfred Owen
Image
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
Image
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
Image
This book is not about heroes. English poetry is not yet fit to speak of them. Nor is it about deeds, or lands, nor anything about glory, honour, might, majesty, dominion, or power, except War. 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