Do not be ashamed by Wendell Berry
Do not be ashamed by Wendell Berry You will be walking some night in the comfortable dark of your yard and suddenly a great light will shine round about you, and behind you will be a wall you never saw before. It will be clear to you suddenly that you were about to escape, and […]
A Meeting by Wendell Berry
A Meeting by Wendell Berry In a Dream I meet my dead friend. He has, I know, gone long and far, and yet he is the same for the dead are changeless. They grow no older. It is I who have changed, grown strange to what I was. Yet I, the changed one, ask: “How […]
1991-II by Wendell Berry
1991-II by Wendell Berry The ewes crowd to the mangers; Their bellies widen, sag; Their udders tighten. Soon The little voices cry In morning cold. Soon now The Garden must be worked, Laid off in rows, the seed Of life to come brought down Into the dark to rest, Abide awhile alone, And rise. Soon, […]
1991-I by Wendell Berry
1991-I by Wendell Berry The year begins with war. Our bombs fall day and night, Hour after hour, by death Abroad appeasing wrath, Folly, and greed at home. Upon our giddy tower We’d oversway the world. Our hate comes down to kill Those whom we do not see, For we have given up Our sight […]
A Terre (being the philosophy of many soldiers) by Wilfred Owen
Sit on the bed. I’m blind, and three parts shell. Be careful; can’t shake hands now; never shall. Both arms have mutinied against me,-brutes. My fingers fidget like ten idle brats. I tried to peg out soldierly,-no use! One dies of war like any old disease. This bandage feels like pennies on my eyes. I […]
Disabled by Wilfred Owen
He sat in a wheeled chair, waiting for dark, And shivered in his ghastly suit of grey, Legless, sewn short at elbow. Through the park Voices of boys rang saddening like a hymn, Voices of play and pleasure after day, Till gathering sleep had mothered them from him. About this time Town used to swing […]
Anthem For Doomed Youth by Wilfred Owen
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? Only the monstrous anger of the guns. Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle Can patter out their hasty orisons. No mockeries for them; no prayers nor bells, Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, — The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells; And bugles calling for […]
Dulce Et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen
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. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to […]
Conscious by Wilfred Owen
His fingers wake, and flutter up the bed. His eyes come open with a pull of will, Helped by the yellow may-flowers by his head. A blind-cord drawls across the window-sill . . . How smooth the floor of the ward is! what a rug! And who’s that talking, somewhere out of sight? Why are […]
Insensibility by Wilfred Owen
I Happy are men who yet before they are killed Can let their veins run cold. Whom no compassion fleers Or makes their feet Sore on the alleys cobbled with their brothers. The front line withers, But they are troops who fade, not flowers For poets’ tearful fooling: Men, gaps for filling Losses who might […]
A Terre by Wilfred Owen
(Being the philosophy of many Soldiers.) Sit on the bed; I’m blind, and three parts shell, Be careful; can’t shake hands now; never shall. Both arms have mutinied against me — brutes. My fingers fidget like ten idle brats. I tried to peg out soldierly — no use! One dies of war like any old […]
Arms And The Boy by Wilfred Owen
Let the boy try along this bayonet-blade How cold steel is, and keen with hunger of blood; Blue with all malice, like a madman’s flash; And thinly drawn with famishing for flesh. Lend him to stroke these blind, blunt bullet-heads Which long to muzzle in the hearts of lads. Or give him cartridges of fine […]
Asleep by Wilfred Owen
Under his helmet, up against his pack, After the many days of work and waking, Sleep took him by the brow and laid him back. And in the happy no-time of his sleeping, Death took him by the heart. There was a quaking Of the aborted life within him leaping … Then chest and sleepy […]
Exposure by Wilfred Owen
I Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knife 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 […]
Futility by Wilfred Owen
Move him into the sun — Gently its touch awoke him once, At home, whispering of fields unsown. Always it woke him, even in France, Until this morning and this snow. If anything might rouse him now The kind old sun will know. Think how it wakes the seeds — Woke, once, the clays of […]
Le Christianisme by Wilfred Owen
So the church Christ was hit and buried Under its rubbish and its rubble. In cellars, packed-up saints long serried, Well out of hearing of our trouble. One Virgin still immaculate Smiles on for war to flatter her. She’s halo’d with an old tin hat, But a piece of hell will batter her. ————— The […]
An Imperial Elegy by Wilfred Owen
Not one corner of a foreign field But a span as wide as Europe; An appearance of a titan’s grave, And the length thereof a thousand miles, It crossed all Europe like a mystic road, Or as the Spirits’ Pathway lieth on the night. And I heard a voice crying This is the Path of […]
But I Was Looking At The Permanent Stars by Wilfred Owen
Bugles sang, saddening the evening air, And bugles answered, sorrowful to hear. Voices of boys were by the river-side. Sleep mothered them; and left the twilight sad. The shadow of the morrow weighed on men. Voices of old despondency resigned, Bowed by the shadow of the morrow, slept. ( ) dying tone Of receding voices […]
I Saw His Round Mouth’s Crimson by Wilfred Owen
[I saw his round mouth’s crimson deepen as it fell], Like a Sun, in his last deep hour; Watched the magnificent recession of farewell, Clouding, half gleam, half glower, And a last splendour burn the heavens of his cheek. And in his eyes The cold stars lighting, very old and bleak, In different skies. ————— […]
I know The Music (unfinished) by Wilfred Owen
All sounds have been as music to my listening: Pacific lamentations of slow bells, The crunch of boots on blue snow rosy-glistening, Shuffle of autumn leaves; and all farewells: Bugles that sadden all the evening air, And country bells clamouring their last appeals Before [the] music of the evening prayer; Bridges, sonorous under carriage wheels. […]
Hospital Barge At Cerisy by Wilfred Owen
Budging the sluggard ripples of the Somme, A barge round old Cérisy slowly slewed. Softly her engines down the current screwed, And chuckled softly with contented hum, Till fairy tinklings struck their croonings dumb. The waters rumpling at the stern subdued; The lock-gate took her bulging amplitude; Gently from out the gurgling lock she swum. […]
Has Your Soul Sipped? by Wilfred Owen
Has your soul sipped Of the sweetness of all sweets? Has it well supped But yet hungers and sweats? I have been witness Of a strange sweetness, All fancy surpassing Past all supposing. Passing the rays Of the rubies of morning, Or the soft rise Of the moon; or the meaning Known to the rose […]
Happiness by Wilfred Owen
Ever again to breathe pure happiness, So happy that we gave away our toy? We smiled at nothings, needing no caress? Have we not laughed too often since with Joy? Have we not stolen too strange and sorrowful wrongs For her hands’ pardoning? The sun may cleanse, And time, and starlight. Life will sing great […]
Greater Love by Wilfred Owen
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 […]
From My Diary, July 1914 by Wilfred Owen
Leaves Murmuring by miriads in the shimmering trees. Lives Wakening with wonder in the Pyrenees. Birds Cheerily chirping in the early day. Bards Singing of summer, scything thro’ the hay. Bees Shaking the heavy dews from bloom and frond. Boys Bursting the surface of the ebony pond. Flashes Of swimmers carving thro’ the sparkling cold. […]
At A Calvary Near The Ancre by Wilfred Owen
One ever hangs where shelled roads part. In this war He too lost a limb, But His disciples hide apart; And now the Soldiers bear with Him. Near Golgotha strolls many a priest, And in their faces there is pride That they were flesh-marked by the Beast By whom the gentle Christ’s denied The scribes […]
Apologia Pro Poemate Meo by Wilfred Owen
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 […]
Antaeus: [A Fragment] by Wilfred Owen
So neck to stubborn neck, and obstinate knee to knee, Wrestled those two; and peerless Heracles Could not prevail, nor get at any vantage… So those huge hands that, small, had snapped great snakes, Let slip the writhing of Antaeus’ wrists: Those hero’s hands that wrenched the necks of bulls, Now fumbled round the slim […]
A New Heaven (To-On Active Service) by Wilfred Owen
Seeing we never found gay fairyland (Though still we crouched by bluebells moon by moon) And missed the tide of Lethe; yet are soon For that new bridge that leaves old Styx half-spanned; Nor ever unto Mecca caravanned; Nor bugled Asgard, skilled in magic rune; Nor yearned for far Nirvana, the sweet swoon, And from […]
1914 by Wilfred Owen
War broke: and now the Winter of the world With perishing great darkness closes in. The foul tornado, centred at Berlin, Is over all the width of Europe whirled, Rending the sails of progress. Rent or furled Are all Art’s ensigns. Verse wails. Now begin Famines of thought and feeling. Love’s wine’s thin. The grain […]
Up The Line by Will McKendree Carleton
Through blinding storm and clouds of night, We swiftly pushed our restless flight; With thundering hoof and warning neigh, We urged our steed upon his way Up the line. Afar the lofty head-light gleamed; Afar the whistle shrieked and screamed; And glistening bright, and rising high, Our flakes of fire bestrewed the sky, Up the […]
Uncle Sammy by Will McKendree Carleton
Some men were born for great things, Some were born for small; Some–it is not recorded Why they were born at all; But Uncle Sammy was certain he had a legitimate call. Some were born with a talent, Some with scrip and land; Some with a spoon of silver, And some with a different brand; […]
The New Church Organ by Will McKendree Carleton
They ‘ve got a brand-new organ, Sue, For all their fuss and search; They’ve done just as they said they’d do, And fetched it into church. They’re bound the critter shall be seen, And on the preacher’s right They’ve hoisted up their new machine, In every body’s sight. They’ve got a chorister and choir, Ag’in’ […]
The Littlle Black-Eyed Rebel by Will McKendree Carleton
A boy drove into the city, his wagon loaded down With food to feed the people of the British-governed town; And the little black-eyed rebel, so innocent and sly, Was watching for his coming from the corner of her eye. His face looked broad and honest, his hands were brown and tough, The clothes he […]
The House Where We Were Wed by Will McKendree Carleton
I’ve been to the old farm-house, good-wife, Where you and I were wed; Where the love was born to our two hearts That now lies cold and dead. Where a long-kept secret to you I told, In the yellow beams of the moon, And we forged our vows out of love’s own gold, To be […]
The Fading Flower by Will McKendree Carleton
There is a chillness in the air– A coldness in the smile of day; And e’en the sunbeam’s crimson glare Seems shaded with a tinge of gray. Weary of journeys to and fro, The sun low creeps adown the sky; And on the shivering earth below, The long, cold shadows grimly lie. But there will […]
The Editor’s Guests by Will McKendree Carleton
The Editor sat in his sanctum, his countenance furrowed with care, His mind at the bottom of business, his feet at the top of a chair, His chair-arm an elbow supporting, his right hand upholding his head, His eyes on his dusty old table, with different documents spread: There were thirty long pages from Howler, […]
The Country Doctor by Will McKendree Carleton
There’s a gathering in the village, that has never been outdone Since the soldiers took their muskets to the war of ’61, And a lot of lumber wagons near the church upon the hill, And a crowd of country people, Sunday dressed and very still. Now each window is preempted by a dozen heads or […]
Thanksgiving Day by Will McKendree Carleton
‘Tis in the thriftful Autumn days, When earth is overdone, And forest trees have caught the blaze Thrown at them by the sun, When up the gray smoke puffs and curls From cottage chimney-lips, And oft the driving storm unfurls The black sails of his ships, Or Indian Summer, dimly fair, May walk the valleys […]
Over The Hill From The Poor-House by Will McKendree Carleton
I, who was always counted, they say, Rather a bad stick any way, Splintered all over with dodges and tricks, Known as “the worst of the Deacon’s six;” I, the truant, saucy and bold, The one black sheep in my father’s fold, “Once on a time,” as the stories say, Went over the hill on […]