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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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Wilfred Owen
Age: 25 †
Born: 1893
Born: March 18
Died: 1918
Died: November 4
Poet
Writer
Oswestry
Shropshire
Wilfred Edward Salter Owen
Owen
Country
Desperate
Children
Glory
Would
Sweet
Friend
High
Dies
Zest
Lying
Ardent
Tell
Fitting

More quotes by 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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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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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 the poet can do today is warn. That is why true Poets must be truthful.
Wilfred Owen
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Be bullied, be outraged, by killed, but do not kill.
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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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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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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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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Ambition may be defined as the willingness to receive any number of hits on the nose.
Wilfred Owen
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The old Lie:Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori.
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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What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
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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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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Heart, you were never hot Nor large, nor full like hearts made great with shot
Wilfred Owen
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All theological lore is becoming distasteful to me.
Wilfred Owen
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Whatever mourns when many leave these shores: Whatever shares The eternal reciprocity of tears.
Wilfred Owen
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For by my glee might many men have laughed, And of my weeping may something have been left, Which must die now.
Wilfred Owen
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Was it for this the clay grew tall?
Wilfred Owen