Wilfred Owen
Wilfred Owen
Wilfred Edward Salter Owen MCwas an English poet and soldier, one of the leading poets of the First World War. His shocking, realistic war poetry on the horrors of trenches and gas warfare was heavily influenced by his friend and mentor Siegfried Sassoon, and stood in stark contrast both to the public perception of war at the time and to the confidently patriotic verse written by earlier war poets such as Rupert Brooke. Among his best-known works – most of which...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth18 March 1893
war gun bells
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
smile sullen hell
And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall, By his dead smile I knew we stood in Hell.
war pity poetry-is
Above all I am not concerned with Poetry. My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity.
country sweet children
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.
beauty summer spiritual
Winter Song The browns, the olives, and the yellows died, And were swept up to heaven; where they glowed Each dawn and set of sun till Christmastide, And when the land lay pale for them, pale-snowed, Fell back, and down the snow-drifts flamed and flowed. From off your face, into the winds of winter, The sun-brown and the summer-gold are blowing; But they shall gleam with spiritual glinter, When paler beauty on your brows falls snowing, And through those snows my looks shall be soft-going.
running fear war
Happy are men who yet before they are killed Can let their veins run cold.
children war eye
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.
want waste barren
All I ask is to be held above the barren wastes of want.
poetry warning today
All a poet can do today is warn.
war book hero
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.
ambition numbers may
Ambition may be defined as the willingness to receive any number of hits on the nose.