Wilfred Owen
Who are these? Why sit
they here in twilight?
Wherefore rock they,
purgatorial shadows,
Drooping tongues from
jaws that slob their relish,
Baring teeth that leer like
skulls’ teeth wicked?
Stroke on stroke of pain, -
but what slow panic,
their fretted sockets?
Ever from their hair and
through their hand palms
Misery swelters. Surely we
have perished
Sleeping, and walk hell; but
who these hellish?
—These are men whose
minds the Dead have
ravished.
hair of murders.
Multitudinous murders
they once witnessed.
Wading sloughs of flesh
these helpless wander,
Treading blood from lungs
that had loved laughter.
Always they must see these
things and hear them,
Batter of guns and shatter
of flying muscles,
human squander
Rucked too thick for these
men’s extrication.
Therefore still their eyeballs
shrink tormented
Back into their brains,
because on their sense
Sunlight seems a blood-
smear; night comes
blood-black;
Dawn breaks open like a
—Thus their heads wear
this hilarious, hideous,
Awful falseness of set-
smiling corpses.
—Thus their hands are
plucking at each other;
Picking at the rope-knouts
of their scourging;
Snatching after us who
smote them, brother,
Pawing us who dealt them
war and madness.
—1918