Poems(诗集)

VIP免费

2024-12-26 0 0 86.88KB 35 页 5.9玖币

侵权投诉

Poems by Wilfred Owen

Poems

Wilfred Owen

Poems by Wilfred Owen

Introduction

In writing an Introduction such as this it is good to be brief. The poems

printed in this book need no preliminary commendations from me or

anyone else. The author has left us his own fragmentary but impressive

Foreword; this, and his Poems, can speak for him, backed by the authority

of his experience as an infantry soldier, and sustained by nobility and

originality of style. All that was strongest in Wilfred Owen survives in his

poems; any superficial impressions of his personality, any records of his

conversation, behaviour, or appearance, would be irrelevant and unseemly.

The curiosity which demands such morsels would be incapable of

appreciating the richness of his work.

The discussion of his experiments in assonance and dissonance (of

which `Strange Meeting' is the finest example) may be left to the

professional critics of verse, the majority of whom will be more

preoccupied with such technical details than with the profound humanity

of the self-revelation manifested in such magnificent lines as those at the

end of his `Apologia pro Poemate Meo', and in that other poem which he

named `Greater Love'.

The importance of his contribution to the literature of the War cannot

be decided by those who, like myself, both admired him as a poet and

valued him as a friend. His conclusions about War are so entirely in

accordance with my own that I cannot attempt to judge his work with any

critical detachment. I can only affirm that he was a man of absolute

integrity of mind. He never wrote his poems (as so many war-poets did) to

make the effect of a personal gesture. He pitied others; he did not pity

himself. In the last year of his life he attained a clear vision of what he

needed to say, and these poems survive him as his true and splendid

testament.

Wilfred Owen was born at Oswestry on 18th March 1893. He was

educated at the Birkenhead Institute, and matriculated at London

University in 1910. In 1913 he obtained a private tutorship near Bordeaux,

where he remained until 1915. During this period he became acquainted

Poems by Wilfred Owen

with the eminent French poet, Laurent Tailhade, to whom he showed his

early verses, and from whom he received considerable encouragement. In

1915, in spite of delicate health, he joined the Artists' Rifles O.T.C., was

gazetted to the Manchester Regiment, and served with their 2nd Battalion

in France from December 1916 to June 1917, when he was invalided

home. Fourteen months later he returned to the Western Front and served

with the same Battalion, ultimately commanding a Company.

He was awarded the Military Cross for gallantry while taking part in

some heavy fighting on 1st October. He was killed on 4th November 1918,

while endeavouring to get his men across the Sambre Canal.

A month before his death he wrote to his mother: "My nerves are in

perfect order. I came out again in order to help these boys; directly, by

leading them as well as an officer can; indirectly, by watching their

sufferings that I may speak of them as well as a pleader can." Let his own

words be his epitaph: --

"Courage was mine, and I had mystery; Wisdom was mine, and I had

mastery."

Siegfried Sassoon.

======= POEMS =======

Poems by Wilfred Owen

Preface

This book is not about heroes. English Poetry is not yet fit to speak of

them. Nor is it about deeds or lands, nor anything about glory, honour,

dominion or power, except War. Above all, this book is not concerned with

Poetry. The subject of it is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the

pity. Yet these elegies are not to this generation, This is in no sense

consolatory.

They may be to the next. All the poet can do to-day is to warn. That is

why the true Poets must be truthful. If I thought the letter of this book

would last, I might have used proper names; but if the spirit of it survives

Prussia, -- my ambition and those names will be content; for they will

have achieved themselves fresher fields than Flanders.

Note. -- This Preface was found, in an unfinished condition, among

Wilfred Owen's papers.

Poems by Wilfred Owen

Strange Meeting

It seemed that out of the 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

With piteous recognition in fixed eyes, Lifting distressful hands as if to

bless. And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall; With a thousand fears that

vision's face was grained; Yet no blood reached there from the upper

ground, And no guns thumped, or down the flues made moan. "Strange,

friend," I said, "Here is no cause to mourn." "None," said the other, "Save

the undone years, The hopelessness. Whatever hope is yours, Was my life

also; I went hunting wild After the wildest beauty in the world, Which lies

not calm in eyes, or braided hair, But mocks the steady running of the hour,

And if it grieves, grieves richlier than here. For by my glee might many

men have laughed, And of my weeping something has been left, Which

must die now. I mean the truth untold, The pity of war, the pity war

distilled. Now men will go content with what we spoiled. Or, discontent,

boil bloody, and be spilled. They will be swift with swiftness of the tigress,

None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress. Courage was

mine, and I had mystery; Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery; To miss

the march of this retreating world Into vain citadels that are not walled.

Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot-wheels I would go up

and wash them from sweet wells, Even with truths that lie too deep for

taint. I would have poured my spirit without stint But not through wounds;

not on the cess of war. Foreheads of men have bled where no wounds were.

I am the enemy you killed, my friend. I knew you in this dark; for so you

frowned Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed. I parried; but my

hands were loath and cold. Let us sleep now . . ."

(This poem was found among the author's papers. It ends on this

strange note.)

*Another Version*

Earth's wheels run oiled with blood. Forget we that. Let us lie down

Poems by Wilfred Owen

and dig ourselves in thought. Beauty is yours and you have mastery,

Wisdom is mine, and I have mystery. We two will stay behind and keep

our troth. Let us forego men's minds that are brute's natures, Let us not sup

the blood which some say nurtures, Be we not swift with swiftness of the

tigress. Let us break ranks from those who trek from progress. Miss we the

march of this retreating world Into old citadels that are not walled. Let us

lie out and hold the open truth. Then when their blood hath clogged the

chariot wheels We will go up and wash them from deep wells. What

though we sink from men as pitchers falling Many shall raise us up to be

their filling Even from wells we sunk too deep for war And filled by brows

that bled where no wounds were.

*Alternative line --*

Even as One who bled where no wounds were.

Poems by Wilfred Owen

Greater Love

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.

文档加载中……请稍候！
如果长时间未打开，您也可以点击刷新试试。

下载文档到电脑，查找使用更方便

5.9 玖币 0人已下载

立即下载 VIP免费下载

摘要：

PoemsbyWilfredOwen1PoemsWilfredOwenPoemsbyWilfredOwen2IntroductionInwritinganIntroductionsuchasthisitisgoodtobebrief.Thepoemsprintedinthisbookneednopreliminarycommendationsfrommeoranyoneelse.TheauthorhasleftushisownfragmentarybutimpressiveForeword;this,andhisPoems,canspeakforhim,backedbytheauthority...

展开>> 收起<<

Poems(诗集).pdf

共35页,预览7页

还剩页未读，继续阅读

声明：本站为文档C2C交易模式，即用户上传的文档直接被用户下载，本站只是中间服务平台，本站所有文档下载所得的收益归上传人(含作者)所有。玖贝云文库仅提供信息存储空间，仅对用户上传内容的表现方式做保护处理，对上载内容本身不做任何修改或编辑。若文档所含内容侵犯了您的版权或隐私，请立即通知玖贝云文库，我们立即给予删除！

Poems(诗集)

相关推荐

开通VIP享超值会员特权

作者详情

相关内容

热门标签

举报选择: