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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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Wilfred Owen
Age: 25 †
Born: 1893
Born: March 18
Died: 1918
Died: November 4
Poet
Writer
Oswestry
Shropshire
Wilfred Edward Salter Owen
Owen
Grew
Sleep
Fatuous
Break
Sunbeams
Earth
Futility
Made
Clay
Toil
Tall

More quotes by 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.
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What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
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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.
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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.
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The old Lie:Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori.
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These men are worth your tears. You are not worth their merriment.
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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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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Soldiers may grow a soul when turned to fronds, But here the thing's best left at home with friends.
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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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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Sweet and fitting it is to die for the fatherland.
Wilfred Owen
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Was it for this the clay grew tall?
Wilfred Owen
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Never fear: Thank Home, and Poetry, and the Force behind both.
Wilfred Owen
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And some cease feeling Even themselves or for themselves. Dullness best solves The tease and doubt of shelling
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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All I ask is to be held above the barren wastes of want.
Wilfred Owen
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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
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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 subject is war, and the pity of war.
Wilfred Owen