Wilfred Owen on the horrors of war
Wilfred Owen, Spring Offensive
Halted against the shade of a last hill,
They fed, and, lying easy, were at ease
And, finding comfortable chests and knees
Carelessly slept.
But many there stood still
To face the stark, blank sky beyond the ridge,
Knowing their feet had come to the end of the world.
Marvelling they stood, and watched the long grass swirled
By the May breeze, murmurous with wasp and midge,
For though the summer oozed into their veins
Like the injected drug for their bones’ pains,
Sharp on their souls hung the imminent line of grass,
Fearfully flashed the sky’s mysterious glass.
Hour after hour they ponder the warm field—
And the far valley behind, where the buttercups
Had blessed with gold their slow boots coming up,
Where even the little brambles would not yield,
But clutched and clung to them like sorrowing hands;
They breathe like trees unstirred.
Till like a cold gust thrilled the little word
At which each body and its soul begird
And tighten them for battle. No alarms
Of bugles, no high flags, no clamorous haste—
Only a lift and flare of eyes that faced
The sun, like a friend with whom their love is done.
O larger shone that smile against the sun,—
Mightier than his whose bounty these have spurned.
So, soon they topped the hill, and raced together
Over an open stretch of herb and heather
Exposed. And instantly the whole sky burned
With fury against them; and soft sudden cups
Opened in thousands for their blood; and the green slopes
Chasmed and steepened sheer to infinite space.
Of them who running on that last high place
Leapt to swift unseen bullets, or went up
On the hot blast and fury of hell’s upsurge,
Or plunged and fell away past this world’s verge,
Some say God caught them even before they fell.
What we love about this excerpt...
Owen's poem captures the bleak atmosphere of war with its long stretches of waiting suddenly offset by terrifying moments of action. We love the way the poem starts with a 'ridge' and ends at 'this world's verge,' one image echoing the other; and the way Owen highlights nature in almost every line, lingering on its everyday, yet exquisite, beauty.
As one of the now-famous World War I poets, Owen pioneered a new kind of war poetry that looked unflinchingly at the human cost of combat and portrayed war's trauma and tragedy. There are a few more lines to this poem in its entirety, but we have cut it off here to highlight Owen's unforgettable, heart-breaking image of the falling soldiers 'caught' by God.
About the author
Wilfred Owen (1893-1918) is associated with the British World War I poets, including Siegfried Sassoon and Rupert Brooke. He wrote almost all of his poems in the year 1917-1918. A week before the Armistice, in November 1918, Owen was killed in action; he was 25. He is celebrated for combining brilliant poetic skill with a thematic insistence the futility and waste of war, at a time when war poetry often unquestioningly championed victory, heroism, and jingoism.
To read alongside...
Vera Brittain (1893-1970), Owen's exact contemporary, suffered the devastating loss of her fiance, brother, and two closest male friends to the 'Great War,' while also serving as a nurse and thereby witnessing first-hand the trauma and agony of the soldiers. She wrote about these experiences in her book Testament of Youth (1933), which took 17 years to complete and which remains one of the most powerful war memoirs ever written. It is also one of the few accounts of war from a woman's perspective.
Suggest a LitHit!
Tell us your own favourites from literature you've read, and become a Guest Curator. Just email us with the following information:
Your full name
The title of the book you're suggesting
The location of the excerpt within the book (e.g., "in the middle of chapter 5"), or the excerpt itself copied into the email or attached to it (in Word)
Why you love it, in just a few sentences
**Please note that we welcome all suggestions but at the moment we can only release excerpts that are out of copyright and in the public domain. This means 75 years or more since the author's death. You can find many such out-of-copyright texts on the internet, for example at Project Gutenberg and Standard Ebooks.
About LitHits
You might also enjoy...
Writers Make Worlds: https://writersmakeworlds.com/
The Ten Minute Book Club: https://www.english.ox.ac.uk/ten-minute-book-club
Project Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/
Standard Ebooks: https://standardebooks.org/
The Poetry Foundation: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/
“Five Tips to Get Reading Again if You’ve Struggled During the Pandemic,” The Conversation (8 January 2021): https://theconversation.com/five-tips-to-get-reading-again-if-youve-struggled-during-the-pandemic-152904
Feedback
We'd love to hear your thoughts on our newsletter:
kirsten@lit-hits.co.uk
Graphic design by Sara Azmy
All curation content © 2022 LitHits. All rights reserved.