Wilfred Owen - Spring Offensive (War Poetry)

Wilfred Owen MC, was an English and Welsh poet and soldier of the First World War. He was born in Oswestry, Shropshire on 18 March 1893. This poem is believed to be one of the last he wrote, before his death at the Battle of Sambre on 4 November 1918, a week before the war ended. He was 25.

I put some music behind incase anyone prefers to read with music. One piece is from the film Romeo and Juliet, and this instrumental version is by Craig Armstrong. The other at the end is from the film Oliver Twist, and is by Rachel Portman. Incase anyone is interested, the picture of clouds in the background is by the 18th centuary artist John Constable. And the final picture, is a photograph of Wilfred Owen. (I don't own anything used here)

Here's the text of the poem:

Halted against the shade of a last hill
They fed, and eased of pack-loads, were at ease;
And leaning on the nearest chest or knees,
Carelessly slept. But many there stood still
To face the stark, blank sky beyond the ridge,
Knowing their feet had come to the end of the world.
Marvelling they stood, and watched the long grass swirled
By the May breeze, murmurous with wasp and midge;
And though the summer oozed into their veins
Like an injected drug for their bodies' pains,
Sharp on their souls hung the imminent ridge of grass,
Fearfully flashed the sky's mysterious glass.

Hour after hour they ponder the warm field
And the far valley behind, where the buttercups
Had blessed with gold their slow boots coming up;
When even the little brambles would not yield
But clutched and clung to them like sorrowing arms.
They breathe like trees unstirred.

Till like a cold gust thrills the little word
At which each body and its soul begird
And tighten them for battle. No alarms
Of bugles, no high flags, no clamorous haste,-
Only a lift and flare of eyes that faced
The sun, like a friend with whom their love is done.
O larger shone that smile against the sun,-
Mightier than his whose bounty these have spurned.

So, soon they topped the hill, and raced together
Over an open stretch of herb and heather
Exposed. And instantly the whole sky burned
With fury against them; earth set sudden cups
In thousands for their blood; and the green slope
Chasmed and steepened sheer to infinite space.

Of them who running on that last high place
Breasted the surf of bullets, or went up
On the hot blast and fury of hell's upsurge,
Or plunged and fell away past this world's verge,
Some say God caught them even before they fell.

But what say such as from existence' brink
Ventured but drave too swift to sink,
The few who rushed in the body to enter hell,
And there out-fiending all its fiends and flames
With superhuman inhumanities,
Long-famous glories, immemorial shames-
And crawling slowly back, have by degrees
Regained cool peaceful air in wonder-
Why speak not they of comrades that went under?

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Tags:

• war
• poetry
• war poetry
• wilfred owen
• siegfried sassoon
• spring offensive
• poem
• first world war
• ww1

[Nikkehhhhh]

We watched this in my English class to help us study this poe. Well done! Very moving.

[Swallows92]

@Nikkehhhhh

Good to hear it was of some help. & thankyou. =)

[Swallows92]

No worries! Thankyou for the compliment.

[T0X0PHILUS]

This is an excellent mixture of music and poetry. 

[xxcassiecxx]

This is a lovely way of displaying Owen's poetry. Thanks! Very Moving!