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1972 / VOICES FROM WORLD WAR 1
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.
Sept.?Oct. 1917 1920
Apologia Pro Poemate Meo1
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.
5 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.
10I, 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?2 15Faces that used to curse me, scowl for scowl, Shine and lift up with passion of oblation,3 Seraphic0 for an hour; though they were foul. ecstatic
I have made fellowships? Untold of happy lovers in old song. For love is not the binding of fair lips
20 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 webbing of the rifle-thong.
25 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
30
With them in hell the sorrowful dark of hell,
1. This Latin title, meaning 'Apology for My mirror which makes beautiful that which is dis- Poem,' may have been prompted by that of Car-torted. .. . It exalts the beauty of that which is dinal Newman's Apologia Pro Vita Sua, 'Apology most beautiful, and it adds beauty to that which is for His Life.' Here an apology is a written vindi-most deformed; it marries exultation and horror.' cation rather than a remorseful account. 3. Sacrifice offered to God. 2. Cf. Shelley, A Defence of Poetry: 'Poetry is a
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OWEN: MINERS / 1
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 35 By any jest of mine. These men are worth Your tears. You are not worth their merriment.
Nov.?Dec. 1917 19
Miners1
There was a whispering in my hearth, A sigh of the coal, Grown wistful of a former earth It might recall.
5 I listened for a tale of leaves And smothered ferns, Frond-forests, and the low sly lives Before the fauns.
My fire might show steam-phantoms simmer 10 From Time's old cauldron, Before the birds made nests in summer, Or men had children.
But the coals were murmuring of their mine, And moans down there 15 Of boys that slept wry sleep, and men Writhing for air.
And I saw white bones in the cinder-shard, Bones without number. Many the muscled bodies charred, 20 And few remember.
I thought of all that worked dark pits Of war,2 and died Digging the rock where Death reputes Peace lies indeed.
25 Comforted years will sit soft-chaired, In rooms of amber; The years will stretch their hands, well-cheered By our life's ember;
1. Wrote a poem on the Colliery Disaster [of Jan. about 150 miners. 12, 1918, at Halmerend]: but I get mixed up with 2. Miners who dug tunnels under no-man'sthe War at the end. It is short, but oh! sour [Owen's in which to detonate mines beneath the en Jan. 14 letter to his mother]. The explosion killed trenches.
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1974 / VOICES FROM WORLD WAR 1
The centuries will burn rich loads 30 With which we groaned, Whose warmth shall lull their dreaming lids, While songs are crooned; But they will not dream of us poor lads, Left in the ground.
Jan. 1918 1931
Dulce Et Decorum Est1
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.
5 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 tired, outstripped Five-Nines2 that dropped behind.
