Poems From The First World War PDF

Departamento
de Filología Inglesa
Poems from the First World War

Literatura inglesa desde 1890 hasta nuestros días
Almudena Machado Jiménez
1. “The Soldier” (1914)

By Siegfried Sassoon
If I should die, think only this of me:

That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam;
A body of England’s, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.
And think, this heart, all evil shed away,

A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.
2. “The Poet as Hero” (1916)

You've heard me, scornful, harsh, and discontented,

Mocking and loathing War: you've asked me why
Of my old, silly sweetness I've repented—
My ecstasies changed to an ugly cry.
You are aware that once I sought the Grail,

Riding in armour bright, serene and strong;
And it was told that through my infant wail
There rose immortal semblances of song.
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Departamento de Filología Inglesa
But now I've said good-bye to Galahad,

And am no more the knight of dreams and show:
For lust and senseless hatred make me glad,
And my killed friends are with me where I go.
Wound for red wound I burn to smite their wrongs;
And there is absolution in my songs.
3. “Glory of Women” (1917)

You love us when we're heroes, home on leave, 

Or wounded in a mentionable place. 
You worship decorations; you believe 
That chivalry redeems the war's disgrace. 
You make us shells. You listen with delight, 
By tales of dirt and danger fondly thrilled. 
You crown our distant ardours while we fight, 
And mourn our laurelled memories when we're killed. 
You can't believe that British troops “retire” 
When hell's last horror breaks them, and they run, 
Trampling the terrible corpses—blind with blood. 
O German mother dreaming by the fire, 
While you are knitting socks to send your son 
His face is trodden deeper in the mud.
4. “Anthem for Doomed Youth” (1917)

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;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

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What candles may be held to speed them all?

Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.
5. “Returning, We Hear the Larks” (1917)

By Isaac Rosenberg
Sombre the night is:

And, though we have our lives, we know
What sinister threat lurks there.
Dragging these anguished limbs, we only know

This poison-blasted track opens on our camp—
On a little safe sleep.
But hark! Joy—joy—strange joy.

Lo! Heights of night ringing with unseen larks:
Music showering on our upturned listening faces.
Death could drop from the dark

As easily as song—
But song only dropped,
Like a blind man's dreams on the sand
By dangerous tides;
Like a girl's dark hair, for she dreams no ruin lies there,
Or her kisses where a serpent hides.

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6. “Dulce et Decorum Est” (1918)

By Wilfred Owen
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.
Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace

Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
***

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7. “The Second Coming” (1919)

By William Butler Yeats
Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

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Departamento

Poems from the First World War

1. “The Soldier” (1914)

If I should die, think only this of me:

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,

2. “The Poet as Hero” (1916)

You've heard me, scornful, harsh, and discontented,

You are aware that once I sought the Grail,

Edificio de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación (I); D2

But now I've said good-bye to Galahad,

3. “Glory of Women” (1917)

You love us when we're heroes, home on leave,

4. “Anthem for Doomed Youth” (1917)

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?

Edificio de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación (I); D2

What candles may be held to speed them all?

5. “Returning, We Hear the Larks” (1917)

Sombre the night is:

Dragging these anguished limbs, we only know

But hark! Joy—joy—strange joy.

Death could drop from the dark

Edificio de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación (I); D2

6. “Dulce et Decorum Est” (1918)

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace

Edificio de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación (I); D2

7. “The Second Coming” (1919)

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Edificio de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación (I); D2

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You love us when we're heroes, home on leave, 