Wilfred Owen, November 4, 1918

You have probably at least heard of Wilfred Owen, even if you are not a fan of poetry from the Great War.  Wilfred is considered to be one of the very best poets who wrote about the war, and he was a front line veteran.  He suffered illness, injury, and shellshock, but he came back to the front even though he could have stayed away.  He wrote throughout the war, and this is a fragment from 1914.

War broke: and now the Winter of the world
With perishing great darkness closes in.
The foul tornado, centered at Berlin,
Is over all the width of Europe whirled,...

Many of his poems take us to dark places that none wish to visit.  A fragment from Dulce Et Decorum Est:

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!-An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime...
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

Another from Strange Meeting:

'I am the enemy you killed, my friend.
I knew you in this dark; for so you frowned
Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed.
I parried; but my hands were loath and cold.
Let us sleep now....'

Wilfred Owen was killed in action on November 4, just one week before the Armistice.  His mother was notified on November 11.

Anthem For Doomed Youth

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
-Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,-
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

And, a fragment from Futility:

Was it for this the clay grew tall?
-O what made fatuous sunbeams toil
To break earth's sleep at all?