[ { "title": "Winter Song", "author": "Wilfred Owen", "lines": [ "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." ], "linecount": "10" }, { "title": "Disabled", "author": "Wilfred Owen", "lines": [ "He sat in a wheeled chair, waiting for dark,", "And shivered in his ghastly suit of grey,", "Legless, sewn short at elbow. Through the park", "Voices of boys rang saddening like a hymn,", "Voices of play and pleasure after day,", "Till gathering sleep had mothered them from him.", "", "About this time Town used to swing so gay", "When glow-lamps budded in the light-blue trees", "And girls glanced lovelier as the air grew dim,", "-- In the old times, before he threw away his knees.", "Now he will never feel again how slim", "Girls' waists are, or how warm their subtle hands,", "All of them touch him like some queer disease.", "", "There was an artist silly for his face,", "For it was younger than his youth, last year.", "Now he is old; his back will never brace;", "He's lost his colour very far from here,", "Poured it down shell-holes till the veins ran dry,", "And half his lifetime lapsed in the hot race,", "And leap of purple spurted from his thigh.", "One time he liked a bloodsmear down his leg,", "After the matches carried shoulder-high.", "It was after football, when he'd drunk a peg,", "He thought he'd better join. He wonders why . . .", "Someone had said he'd look a god in kilts.", "", "That's why; and maybe, too, to please his Meg,", "Aye, that was it, to please the giddy jilts,", "He asked to join. He didn't have to beg;", "Smiling they wrote his lie; aged nineteen years.", "Germans he scarcely thought of; and no fears", "Of Fear came yet. He thought of jewelled hilts", "For daggers in plaid socks; of smart salutes;", "And care of arms; and leave; and pay arrears;", "Esprit de corps; and hints for young recruits.", "And soon, he was drafted out with drums and cheers.", "", "Some cheered him home, but not as crowds cheer Goal.", "Only a solemn man who brought him fruits", "Thanked him; and then inquired about his soul.", "Now, he will spend a few sick years in Institutes,", "And do what things the rules consider wise,", "And take whatever pity they may dole.", "To-night he noticed how the women's eyes", "Passed from him to the strong men that were whole.", "How cold and late it is! Why don't they come", "And put him into bed? Why don't they come?" ], "linecount": "45" }, { "title": "Spring Offensive", "author": "Wilfred Owen", "lines": [ "Halted against the shade of a last hill,", "They fed, and, lying easy, were at ease", "And, finding comfortable chests and knees", "Carelessly slept. But many there stood still", "To face the stark, blank sky beyond the ridge,", "Knowing their feet had come to the end of the world.", "", "Marvelling they stood, and watched the long grass swirled", "By the May breeze, murmurous with wasp and midge,", "For though the summer oozed into their veins", "Like the injected drug for their bones' pains,", "Sharp on their souls hung the imminent line of grass,", "Fearfully flashed the sky's mysterious glass.", "", "Hour after hour they ponder the warm field --", "And the far valley behind, where the buttercups", "Had blessed with gold their slow boots coming up,", "Where even the little brambles would not yield,", "But clutched and clung to them like sorrowing hands;", "They breathe like trees unstirred.", "", "Till like a cold gust thrilled the little word", "At which each body and its soul begird", "And tighten them for battle. No alarms", "Of bugles, no high flags, no clamorous haste --", "Only a lift and flare of eyes that faced", "The sun, like a friend with whom their love is done.", "O larger shone that smile against the sun, --", "Mightier than his whose bounty these have spurned.", "", "So, soon they topped the hill, and raced together", "Over an open stretch of herb and heather", "Exposed. And instantly the whole sky burned", "With fury against them; and soft sudden cups", "Opened in thousands for their blood; and the green slopes", "Chasmed and steepened sheer to infinite space.", "", "Of them who running on that last high place", "Leapt to swift unseen bullets, or went up", "On the hot blast and fury of hell's upsurge,", "Or plunged and fell away past this world's verge,", "Some say God caught them even before they fell.", "", "But what say such as from existence' brink", "Ventured but drave too swift to sink.", "The few who rushed in the body to enter hell,", "And there out-fiending all its fiends and flames", "With superhuman inhumanities,", "Long-famous glories, immemorial shames --", "And crawling slowly back, have by degrees", "Regained cool peaceful air in wonder --", "Why speak they not of comrades that went under?" ], "linecount": "46" }, { "title": "Insensibility", "author": "Wilfred Owen", "lines": [ "I", "", "Happy are men who yet before they are killed", "Can let their veins run cold.", "Whom no compassion fleers", "Or makes their feet", "Sore on the alleys cobbled with their brothers.", "The front line withers,", "But they are troops who fade, not flowers", "For poets' tearful fooling:", "Men, gaps for filling", "Losses who might have fought", "Longer; but no one bothers.", "", "", " II", "", "And some cease feeling", "Even themselves or for themselves.", "Dullness best solves", "The tease and doubt of shelling,", "And Chance's strange arithmetic", "Comes simpler than the reckoning of their shilling.", "They keep no check on Armies' decimation.", "", "", " III", "", "Happy are these who lose imagination:", "They have enough to carry with ammunition.", "Their spirit drags no pack.", "Their old wounds save with cold can not more ache.", "Having seen all things red,", "Their eyes are rid", "Of the hurt of the colour of blood for ever.", "And terror's first constriction over,", "Their hearts remain small drawn.", "Their senses in some scorching cautery of battle", "Now long since ironed,", "Can laugh among the dying, unconcerned.", "", "", " IV", "", "Happy the soldier home, with not a notion", "How somewhere, every dawn, some men attack,", "And many sighs are drained.", "Happy the lad whose mind was never trained:", "His days are worth forgetting more than not.", "He sings along the march", "Which we march taciturn, because of dusk,", "The long, forlorn, relentless trend", "From larger day to huger night.", "", "", " V", "", "We wise, who with a thought besmirch", "Blood over all our soul,", "How should we see our task", "But through his blunt and lashless eyes?", "Alive, he is not vital overmuch;", "Dying, not mortal overmuch;", "Nor sad, nor proud,", "Nor curious at all.", "He cannot tell", "Old men's placidity from his.", "", "", " VI", "", "But cursed are dullards whom no cannon stuns,", "That they should be as stones.", "Wretched are they, and mean", "With paucity that never was simplicity.", "By choice they made themselves immune", "To pity and whatever mourns in man", "Before the last sea and the hapless stars;", "Whatever mourns when many leave these shores;", "Whatever shares", "The eternal reciprocity of tears." ], "linecount": "65" }, { "title": "The Young Soldier", "author": "Wilfred Owen", "lines": [ "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." ], "linecount": "12" } ]