Greater Love

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 seems not to

    care;

Till the fierce love they bear

Cramps them in death’s

    extreme decrepitude.

Your voice sings not so soft,—

Though even as wind

    murmuring through

    raftered loft, —

Your dear voice is not dear,

Gentle, and evening clear,

As theirs whom none now

    hear,

Now earth has stopped their

    piteous mouths that

    coughed.

Heart, you were never hot

Nor large, nor full like

    hearts made great with

    shot;

And though your hand be

    pale,

Paler are all which trail

Your cross through flame

    and hail:

Weep, you may weep, for

    you may touch them not.

—1918