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Wilfred Owen is renowned for his war poetry, particularly as it relates to World War I. His works often take a critical stance on the futility and horror of war, and 'The Parable of the Old Man and the Young' is no exception.
Futility. By Wilfred Owen. Move him into the sun—. Gently its touch awoke him once, At home, whispering of fields half-sown. 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.
Strange Meeting. By Wilfred Owen. It seemed that out of battle I escaped. Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped. Through granites which titanic wars had groined. Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned, Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred. Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared.
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 now for them; no prayers nor bells; Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,— The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
The tease and doubt of shelling, And Chance’s strange arithmetic. Comes simpler than the reckoning of their shilling. They keep no check on armies’ decimation. III. Happy are these who lose imagination: They have enough to carry with ammunition. Their spirit drags no pack. Their old wounds, save with cold, can not more ache.
Owens’s poetry was promoted and published by Sassoon after his death, and backed by Edith Sitwell, a proponent of innovative trends in English poetry. In 1931 Edmund Blunden’s anthology of Owens’s work sent his reputation soaring to new heights, and today Owen is regarded as one of the most talented poets of the period.
Wilfred Owen. 1893 –. 1918. We’d found an old Boche dug-out, and he knew, And gave us hell, for shell on frantic shell. Hammered on top, but never quite burst through. Rain, guttering down in waterfalls of slime. Kept slush waist high, that rising hour by hour, Choked up the steps too thick with clay to climb.
