Wilfred Owen Quotes

56 Sourced Quotes

Dead men may envy living mites in cheese,
Or good germs even. Microbes have their joys,
And subdivide, and never come to death.

Wilfred Owen
Whatever mourns when many leave these shores: Whatever shares The eternal reciprocity of tears.

Wilfred Owen
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod.

Wilfred Owen
Children are not meant to be studied, but enjoyed. Only by studying to be pleased do we understand them.

Wilfred Owen
So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,
And took the fire with him, and a knife.
And as they sojourned both of them together,
Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father,
Behold the preparations, fire and iron,
But where the lamb for this burnt-offering?
Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,
And builded parapets and trenches there,
And stretchèd forth the knife to slay his son.
When lo! an angel called him out of heaven,
Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,
Neither do anything to him, thy son.
Behold! Caught in a thicket by its horns,
A Ram. Offer the Ram of Pride instead. But the old man would not so, but slew his son,
And half the seed of Europe, one by one.

Wilfred Owen
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.

Wilfred Owen
I find purer philosophy in a Poem than in a Conclusion of Geometry, a chemical analysis, or a physical law

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

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

Wilfred Owen
And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall, By his dead smile I knew we stood in Hell.

Wilfred Owen
Never fear: Thank Home, and Poetry, and the Force behind both.

Wilfred Owen
He dropped, — more sullenly than wearily,
Lay stupid like a cod, heavy like meat,
And none of us could kick him to his feet;
— Just blinked at my revolver, blearily;
— Didn't appear to know a war was on,
Or see the blasted trench at which he stared.

Wilfred Owen
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.

Wilfred Owen
And when I hearken to the Earth, she saith:
'My fiery heart shrinks, aching. It is death.
Mine ancient scars shall not be glorified,
Nor my titanic tears, the seas, be dried.'

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 brags
He wars on Death, for lives; not men, for flags.

Wilfred Owen
All a poet can do to-day is warn. That is why the true Poets must be truthful.

Wilfred Owen
Tonight he noticed how the women's eyes
Passed from him to the strong men that were whole.

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

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

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

Wilfred Owen
After the blast of lightning from the east,
The flourish of loud clouds, the Chariot Throne;
After the drums of time have rolled and ceased,
And by the bronze west long retreat is blown,
Shall Life renew these bodies? Of a truth,
All death will he annul, all tears assuage? —
Or fill these void veins full again with youth,
And wash, with an immortal water, age?

Wilfred Owen
We sent him down at last, out of the way.
Unwounded; — stout lad, too, before that strafe.
Malingering? Stretcher-bearers winked, 'Not half!' Next day I heard the Doc.'s well-whiskied laugh:
'That scum you sent last night soon died. Hooray!'

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
Numbers of the old people cannot read. Those who can seldom do

Wilfred Owen
I am only conscious of any satisfaction in Scientific Reading or thinking when it rounds off into a poetical generality and vagueness.

Wilfred Owen