Owen - Poems

UK | USA | Canada | Ireland | Australia India | New Zealand | South Africa Penguin Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com. The first selection of Wilfred Owens poetry, assembled by his friend and mentor Siegfried Sassoon, was published posthumously in 1920 under the title Poems. This volume follows the order, titles and text of the expanded edition, The Poems of Wilfred Owen, which was edited by Edmund Blunden and published in 1931. This edition first published in Penguin Classics 2017 Cover design and illustration: Coraline Bickford-Smith ISBN: 978-0-241-30325-2 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. Yet these elegies are to this generation in no sense consolatory. They may be to the next. All a poet can do today is 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 survives Prussia my ambition and those names will have achieved themselves fresher fields than Flanders )

Leaves Murmuring by myriads in the shimmering trees. Lives Wakening with wonder in the Pyrenees. Birds Cheerily chirping in the early day. Bards Singing of summer, scything through the hay. Bees Shaking the heavy dews from bloom and frond.

Boys Bursting the surface of the ebony pond. Flashes Of swimmers carving through the sparkling cold. Fleshes Gleaming with wetness to the morning gold. A mead Bordered about with warbling water brooks. A maid Laughing the love-laugh with me; proud of looks. The heat Throbbing between the upland and the peak.

Her heart Quivering with passion to my pressd cheek. Braiding Of floating flames across the mountain brow. Brooding Of stillness; and a sighing of the bough. Stirs Of leaflets in the gloom; soft petal-showers; Stars Expanding with the starrd nocturnal flowers.

Suddenly night crushed out the day and hurled Her remnants over cloud-peaks, thunder-walled. Then fell a stillness such as harks appalled When far-gone dead return upon the world.

There watched I for the Dead; but no ghost woke. Each one whom Life exiled I named and called. But they were all too far, or dumbed, or thralled; And never one fared back to me or spoke. Then peered the indefinite unshapen dawn With vacant gloaming, sad as half-lit minds, The weak-limned hour when sick mens sighs are drained. And while I wondered on their being withdrawn, Gagged by the smothering wing which none unbinds, I dreaded even a heaven with doors so chained.

In that I loved you, Love, I worshipped you, In that I worshipped well, I sacrificed All of most worth.

I bound and burnt and slew Old peaceful lives; frail flowers; firm friends; and Christ. I slew all falser loves; I slew all true, That I might nothing love but your truth, Boy. Fair fame I cast away as bridegrooms do Their wedding garments in their haste of joy. But when I fell upon your sandalled feet, You laughed; you loosed away my lips; you rose. I heard the singing of your wings retreat; Far-flown, I watched you flush the Olympian snows Beyond my hoping.

My shy hand shades a hermitage apart, O large enough for thee, and thy brief hours. My shy hand shades a hermitage apart, O large enough for thee, and thy brief hours.

Life there is sweeter held than in Gods heart, Stiller than in the heavens of hollow flowers. The wine is gladder there than in gold bowls. And Time shall not drain thence, nor trouble spill. Sources between my fingers feed all souls, Where thou mayest cool thy lips, and draw thy fill. Five cushions hath my hand, for reveries; And one deep pillow for thy brows fatigues; Languor of June all winterlong, and ease For ever from the vain untravelled leagues.

His face was charged with beauty as a cloud With glimmering lightning. His face was charged with beauty as a cloud With glimmering lightning.

When it shadowed me I shook, and was uneasy as a tree That draws the brilliant danger, tremulous, bowed. So must I tempt that face to loose its lightning. Great gods, whose beauty is death, will laugh above, Who made his beauty lovelier than love. I shall be bright with their unearthly brightening. And happier were it if my sap consume; Glorious will shine the opening of my heart; The land shall freshen that was under gloom; What matter if all men cry aloud and start, And women hide bleak faces in their shawl, At those hilarious thunders of my fall? October 1916

I have been urged by earnest violins And drunk their mellow sorrows to the slake Of all my sorrows and my thirsting sins. My heart has beaten for a brave drums sake.

Huge chords have wrought me mighty: I have hurled Thuds of Gods thunder. And with old winds pondered Over the curse of this chaotic world, With low lost winds that maundered as they wandered. I have been gay with trivial fifes that laugh; And songs more sweet than possible things are sweet; And gongs, and oboes. Yet I guessed not half Lifes symphathy till I had made hearts beat, And touched Loves body into trembling cries, And blown my loves lips into laughs and sighs. October 191617

I am the ghost of Shadwell Stair. Along the wharves by the water-house, And through the dripping slaughter-house, I am the shadow that walks there.

Yet I have flesh both firm and cool, And eyes tumultuous as the gems Of moons and lamps in the lapping Thames When dusk sails wavering down the pool. Shuddering the purple street-arc burns Where I watch always; from the banks Dolorously the shipping clanks, And after me a strange tide turns. I walk till the stars of London wane And dawn creeps up the Shadwell Stair. But when the crowing syrens blare I with another ghost am lain.

Ever again to breathe pure happiness, The happiness our mother gave us, boys? To smile at nothings, needing no caress? Have we not laughed too often since with joys? Have we not wrought too sick and sorrowful wrongs For their hands pardoning? The sun may cleanse, And time, and starlight. Life will sing sweet songs, And gods will show us pleasures more than mens.

But the old Happiness is unreturning. Boys griefs are not so grievous as youths yearning, Boys have no sadness sadder than our hope. We who have seen the gods kaleidoscope, And played with human passions for our toys, We know men suffer chiefly by their joys.

Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knive us Wearied we keep awake because the night is silent Low, drooping flares confuse our memory of the salient Worried by silence, sentries whisper, curious, nervous, But nothing happens. Watching, we hear the mad gusts tugging on the wire, Like twitching agonies of men among its brambles. Northward, incessantly, the flickering gunnery rumbles, Far off, like a dull rumour of some other war.