Poems

except War. Above all, this book is not concerned with Poetry. The subject of it is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity. Yet these elegies are not to this generation, This is in no sense consolatory.

They may be to the next. All the poet can do to-day is to warn. That is why the true Poets must be truthful. If I thought the letter of this book would last, I might have used proper names; but if the spirit of it survives Prussia,--my ambition and those names will be content; for they will have achieved themselves fresher fields than Flanders.

Note.--This Preface was found, in an unfinished condition, among Wilfred Owen's papers.

Strange Meeting

It seemed that out of the battle I escaped Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped Through granites which Titanic wars had groined. Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned, Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred. Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared With piteous recognition in fixed eyes, Lifting distressful hands as if to bless. And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall; With a thousand fears that vision's face was grained; Yet no blood reached there from the upper ground, And no guns thumped, or down the flues made moan. "Strange, friend," I said, "Here is no cause to mourn." "None," said the other, "Save the undone years, The hopelessness. Whatever hope is yours, Was my life also; I went hunting wild After the wildest beauty in the world, Which lies not calm in eyes, or braided hair, But mocks the steady running of the hour, And if it grieves, grieves richlier than here. For by my glee might many men have laughed, And of my weeping something has been left, Which must die now. I mean the truth untold, The pity of war, the pity war distilled. Now men will go content with what we spoiled. Or, discontent, boil bloody, and be spilled. They will be swift with swiftness of the tigress, None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress. 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. Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot-wheels I would go up and wash them from sweet wells, Even with truths that lie too deep for taint. I would have poured my spirit without stint But not through wounds; not on the cess of war. Foreheads of men have bled where no wounds were. 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 . . ."

(This poem was found among the author's papers. It ends on this strange note.)

Another Version

Earth's wheels run oiled with blood. Forget we that. Let us lie down and dig ourselves in thought. Beauty is yours and you have mastery, Wisdom is mine, and I have mystery. We two will stay behind and keep our troth. Let us forego men's minds that are brute's natures, Let us not sup the blood which some say nurtures, Be we not swift with swiftness of the tigress. Let us break ranks from those who trek from progress. Miss we the march of this retreating world Into old citadels that are not walled. Let us lie out and hold the open truth. Then when their blood hath clogged the chariot wheels We will go up and wash them from deep wells. What though we sink from men as pitchers falling Many shall raise us up to be their filling Even from wells we sunk too deep for war And filled by brows that bled where no wounds were.

Greater Love

Red lips are not so red As the stained stones kissed by the English dead. Kindness of wooed and wooer Seems shame to their love pure. O Love, your eyes lose lure When I behold eyes blinded in my stead!

Your slender attitude Trembles not exquisite like limbs knife-skewed, Rolling and rolling there Where God seems not to care; Till the fierce Love they bear Cramps them in death's extreme decrepitude.

Your voice sings not so soft,-- Though even as wind murmuring through raftered loft,-- Your dear voice is not dear, Gentle, and evening clear, As theirs whom none now hear Now earth has stopped their piteous mouths that coughed.

Heart, you were never hot, Nor large, nor full like hearts made great with shot; And though your hand be pale, Paler are all which trail Your cross through flame and hail: Weep, you may weep, for you may touch them not.

Apologia pro Poemate Meo

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.

Merry it was to laugh there-- Where death becomes absurd and life absurder. For power was on us as we slashed bones bare Not to feel sickness or remorse of murder.

I, too, have dropped off fear-- Behind the barrage, dead as my platoon, And sailed my spirit surging, light and clear Past the entanglement where hopes lay strewn;

And witnessed exultation-- Faces that used to curse me, scowl for scowl, Shine and lift up with passion of oblation, Seraphic for an hour; though they were foul.

I have made fellowships-- Untold of happy lovers in old song. For love is not the binding of fair lips With the soft silk of eyes that look and long,

By Joy, whose ribbon slips,-- But wound with war's hard wire whose stakes are strong; Bound with the bandage of the arm that drips; Knit in the welding of the rifle-thong.

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.

Nevertheless, except you share With them in hell the sorrowful dark of hell, Whose world is but the trembling of a flare, And heaven but as the highway for a shell,

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

November 1917.

The Show

My soul looked down from a vague height with Death, As unremembering how I rose or why, And saw a sad land, weak with sweats of dearth, Gray, cratered like the moon with hollow woe, And fitted with great pocks and scabs of plaques.

Across its beard, that horror of harsh wire, There moved thin caterpillars, slowly uncoiled. It seemed they pushed themselves to be as plugs Of ditches, where they writhed and shrivelled, killed.

By them had slimy paths been trailed and scraped Round myriad warts that might be little hills.

From gloom's last dregs these long-strung creatures crept, And vanished out of dawn down hidden holes.

(And smell came up from those foul openings As out of mouths, or deep wounds deepening.)

On dithering feet upgathered, more and more, Brown strings towards strings of gray, with bristling spines, All migrants from green fields, intent on mire.

Those that were gray, of more abundant spawns, Ramped on the rest and ate them and were eaten.

I saw their bitten backs curve, loop, and straighten, I watched those agonies curl, lift, and flatten.

Whereat, in terror what that sight might mean, I reeled and shivered earthward like a feather.

And Death fell with me, like a deepening moan. And He, picking a manner of worm, which half had hid Its 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.

Mental Cases

Who are these? Why sit they here in twilight? Wherefore rock they, purgatorial shadows, Drooping tongues from jaws that slob their relish, Baring teeth that leer like skulls' tongues wicked? Stroke on stroke of pain,--but what slow panic, Gouged these chasms round their fretted sockets? Ever from their hair and through their hand palms Misery swelters. Surely we have perished Sleeping, and walk hell; but who these hellish?

--These are men whose minds the Dead have ravished. Memory fingers in their hair of murders, Multitudinous murders they once witnessed. Wading sloughs of flesh these helpless wander, Treading blood from lungs that had loved laughter. Always they must see these things and hear them, Batter of guns and shatter of flying muscles, Carnage incomparable and human squander Rucked too thick for these men's extrication.