Wilfred Owen

A picture of the poet - Wilfred Owen

You know being an English lit major in I got to indulge in poetry and Emily Dickinson was a favourite among my many female English Lit. friends, but of course yours truly, needed some blood and gore and a bit more drama....always more drama. In fact, that should be my motto. Anyway, in looking at the many great poets of all time, I stumbled on a British poet who was also a soldier in the first world war. His poems are often, gruesome and grey but they are powerful and very emotional pieces. Although I think it is unjust to categorise his poetry, he is often known as a war poet... His poetry moved me as a teenager and continues to be a great source of inspiration for me in my life. Since I felt such a connection to him, I wanted to share on of my favourite poems with you....





Greater Love





Red lips are not so red


As the stained stones kissed by the English dead.


Kindness of wooed and wooerSeems shame to their love pure.


O Love, your eyes lose lureWhen I behold eyes blinded in my stead!


Your slender attitudeTrembles not exquisite like limbs knife-skewed,


Rolling and rolling thereWhere God seems not to care:


Till the fierce love they bearCramps 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.





-Wilfred Owen-