The Collected Poems of Wilfred Owen

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

Oh yes, I know the way to heaven was easy. We found the little kingdom of our passion that all can share who walk the road of lovers. In wild and secret happiness we stumbled; and gods and demons clamoured in our senses.

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

Sleep mothered them; and left the twilight sad.

And in his eyes The cold stars lighting, very old and bleak, In different skies.

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

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 That old lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori.

O what made fatuous sunbeams toil To break earth's sleep at all?

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.

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

Consummation is consumption We cannot consummate our bliss and not consume All joys are cakes and vanish in eating All bliss is sugar's melting in the mouth

For by my glee might many men have laughed, And of my weeping may something have been left, Which must die now.

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

Wading sloughs of flesh these helpless wander, Treading blood from lungs that had loved laughter.

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.

I am the enemy you killed, my friend.

Voices of boys were by the river-side. Sleep mothered them; and left the twilight sad.

The dust that fell unnoted as a dew, Wrapped the dead city's face like mummy-cloth

But let my death be memoried on this disc. Wear it, sweet friend. Inscribe no date nor deed. But let thy heart-beat kiss it night and day, Until the name grow vague and wear away.

There breasts were stuck all white with wreath and spray As men's are, dead.

Shall they return to beating of great bells In wild train-loads? A few, a few, too few for drums and yells, May creep back, silent, to village wells, Up half-known roads.