Quotes from Wilfred Owen

Do you know what would hold me together on a battlefield? The sense that I was perpetuating the language in which Keats and the rest of them wrote!

A Poem does not grow by jerks. As trees in Spring produce a new ring of tissue, so does every poet put forth a fresh outlay of stuff at the same season.

All the poet can do today is warn. That is why true Poets must be truthful.

All I ask is to be held above the barren wastes of want.

The war effects me less than it ought. I can do no service to anybody by agitating for news or making dole over the slaughter.

The English say, Yours Truly, and mean it. The Italians say, I kiss your feet, and mean, I kick your head.

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.

The old Lie:Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori.

No-man's land under snow is like the face of the moon: chaotic, crater ridden, uninhabitable, awful, the abode of madness.

Above all I am not concerned with Poetry. My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity.

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? Only the monstrous anger of the guns.

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.

Happy are men who yet before they are killed Can let their veins run cold.

I, too, saw God through mud

The war affects me less than it ought. But I can do no service to anybody by agitating for news or making dole over the slaughter.

Walking abroad, one is the admiration of all little boys, and meets an approving glance from every eye of elderly.

Flying is the only active profession I could ever continue with enthusiasm after the War.

My subject is war, and the pity of war.

I tried to peg out soldierly,--no use! One dies of war like any old disease.

It seemed that out of battle I escaped Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped Through granites which titanic wars had groined.

I thought of all that worked dark pits Of war, and died Digging the rock where Death reputes Peace lies indeed.

And some cease feeling Even themselves or for themselves. Dullness best solves The tease and doubt of shelling

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.

Courage was mine, and I had mystery, Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery: To miss the march of this retreating world Into vain citadels that are not walled.