Wilfred Owen Quotes

These men are worth your tears. You are not worth their merriment.

~ Wilfred Owen

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs And towards our distant rest began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots Of disappointed shells that dropped behind. GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling, Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time; But someone still was yelling out and stumbling And floundering 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. If in some smothering dreams you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin; If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,-- My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori.

~ Wilfred Owen

Red lips are not so red as the stained stones kissed by the English dead.

~ Wilfred Owen

The universal pervasion of ugliness, hideous landscapes, vile noises, foul language...everything. Unnatural, broken, blasted; the distortion of the dead, whose unburiable bodies sit outside the dug outs all day, all night, the most execrable sights on earth. In poetry we call them the most glorious.

~ Wilfred Owen

All a poet can do today is warn.

~ Wilfred Owen

What passing bells for these who die as cattle?Only the monstrous anger of the guns.Only the stuttering rifle's rapid rattleCan 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.

~ Wilfred Owen

But the old man would not so, but slew his son,And half the seed of Europe, one by one.

~ Wilfred Owen

Escape? There is one unwatched way: your eyes. O Beauty! Keep me good that secret gate.

~ Wilfred Owen

Oh, Death was never enemy of ours!We laughed at him, we leagued with him, old chum.No soldier's paid to kick against His powers.We laughed, — knowing that better men would come,And greater wars: when each proud fighter bragsHe wars on Death, for lives; not men, for flags.

~ Wilfred Owen

Through the dense din, I say, we heard him shoutI see your lights! But ours had long died out.

~ Wilfred Owen

I dreamed kind Jesus fouled the big-gun gears, and caused a permanent stoppage in all bolts, and buckled with a smile Mausers and Colts, and rusted every bayonet with His tears.

~ Wilfred Owen

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.

~ Wilfred Owen

You shall not hear their mirth:You shall not come to think them well contentBy any jest of mine. These men are worthYour tears:You are not worth their merriment.

~ Wilfred Owen

And Death fell with me, like a deepening moan.And He, picking a manner of worm, which half had hidIts bruises in the earth, but crawled no further,Showed me its feet, the feet of many men,And the fresh-severed head of it, my head.

~ Wilfred Owen

Some say God caught them even before they fell.

~ Wilfred Owen

As bronze may be much beautified by lying in the dark damp soil, so men who fade in dust of warfare fade fairer, and sorrow blooms their soul.

~ Wilfred Owen

He's lost his colour very far from here,Poured it down shell-holes till the veins ran dry

~ Wilfred Owen

Those who have no hope pass their old age shrouded with an inward gloom.

~ Wilfred Owen

My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity.

~ Wilfred Owen

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

~ Wilfred Owen

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