Wilfred Owen (Routledge Revivals)

Selected Poetry and Prose

Jennifer Breen

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781138789623
• eBook ISBN: 9781317655237
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literatur
• Subtopic: Europäische Literarische Sammlungen

First published in 1988, this annotated selection of Wilfred Owen's poetry and prose provides a comprehensive one-volume text of his best work. As well as the war poems, it includes illuminating early pieces such as 'Impressionist' and 'Little Claus and Big Claus', which illustrate Owen's early command of satire and narrative. The prose includes Owen's well-known draft Preface and a wide range of his letters, showing the devotion he felt for his mother, his poetic development after meeting Siegfried Sassoon, and, above all, his war experiences. With a detailed introduction and helpful commentary, this timely reissue will be of particular value to A-Level and undergraduate students with an interest in the work of Wilfred Owen, his contemporaries, and the context of the First World War.

WILFRED OWEN

Selected Poetry and Prose

SONNET WRITTEN AT TEIGNMOUTH, ON A PILGRIMAGE TO KEATS’S HOUSE

Three colours have I known the Deep to wear;

’Tis well today that Purple grandeurs gloom,

Veiling the Emerald sheen and Sky-blue glare.

Well, too, that lowly-brooding clouds now loom

In sable majesty around, fringed fair

With ermine-white of surf: to me they bear

Watery memorials of His mystic doom

Whose Name was writ in Water (saith his tomb).

Eternally may sad waves wail his death,

Choke in their grief ’mongst rocks where he has lain,

Or heave in silence, yearning with hushed breath,

While mournfully trail the slow-moved mists and rain,

And softly the small drops slide from weeping trees,

Quivering in anguish to the sobbing breeze.

April 1911

JS, 1983

IMPRESSIONIST

Although his speech ran suavely as a valse

His empty heart gave hollow echoes, false

As ring the vacant city’s, late at night.

His narrow eyelids shot suspicious light:

As might the shutters of an evil house.

The more ‘good taste’ might scavenge, scrub and souse

The alleys of his mind to disembarrass:

The more it left them stony-stark, – like Paris.

And as the erections of his life grew high

And new ambitions piled up fast and thick

So narrower was his knowledge of the sky

So denser was his air with dust of brick.

He valued every man at market price:

Large public parks laid out by legislature

Were his idea and cognisance of Nature.

Neat cemeteries his garden of paradise.

November 1911–May 1912

JS, 1983

LITTLE CLAUS AND BIG CLAUS

There dwelled within a village, once, two men,

Whose names alike were Claus. Four stalwart mares

Had one; the other but a single nag.

Wherefore the richer wight Big Claus was called,

While men, if e’er they stayed to speak of him,

Would style his neighbour Little Clans. Now hark,

And you shall hear how fared it with them both,

For some do say my story is the truth.

All week, poor Little Claus would plough for Big,

Lending his only horse; and then, in turn,

Big Claus would help one day in seven, with all

His team at work. Oh, proudly Little Claus

Curled the lithe whip over the horses five

On Sundays. Were they not his, that day?

And, when the morning sun was warm, and mist

Rose from the fresh furrows like the horses’ steam,

While bells out-clamoured hungrily for folk

To fill the void and cavernous church, his heart

Would swell with pride to see the passers-by

Watching his labour; and he smacked his whip

And cried out ‘Gee ho, my five horses.’ ‘Nay,’

Quoth Big Claus. ‘That ye must not say, for one

Alone is thine.’ Alas, no sooner came

Another well-clad churchman by, than Claus

Forgot the prohibition and its giver,

Forgot to guide the ploughshare even, and sang,

Not to the team but to the onlooker,

‘Gee ho! my five horses!’

‘Say it again,’

Growled Big Claus, menacing, and nodding slow

His head, much like the toiling nag itself,

‘And I will knock thy beast upon the pate,

And make an end of it.’ Then Little Claus

Ploughed on in silence; till a company

Of pleasant friends crossed o’er the fields, and called

Good-morrow to the tiller at his toil.

Pride set his thoughtless face once more aflush;

Full grandly he replied, and as they passed,

Briskly he clacked his whip. ‘Gee ho!’ he sang.

‘Gee ho! my five horses.’ Not a word

Spoke Big Claus, but he snatched a hammer up

And smote the hapless creature sudden-dead.

Oh, pitifully Little Claus did weep

To see his one horse dead, and reck his loss.

But afterwards he stripped away the hide

And dried it, till it stiffened in the wind;

Then packed it, slung the bag upon his back

And set foot to a neighbouring town to sell.

The afternoon o’ertook him on his way,

And with it, curdling storm clouds. ’Mid deep brakes

The tempest trapped him; and he wandered wide

Below dark sky and darker woods. At length

Firm shadows and a bar of yellow light,

Shining atop of shutters, beckoned him

Towards a farm. His knocking brought the Wife

To door; but ‘No!’ said she, an unknown man

She could not lodge, the Farmer being from home.

Claus turned round slowly from the sharp-slammed door,

And crept upon a thatch-roofed shed close by;

Whence, as he lay, and twisted him about,

He saw, above the scanty shutters, full

Into the kitchen; saw a table spread

With meats and fish and wine; and one there sat –

A Sexton – plying merrily his fork,

The whiles the Woman kept his glass abrim.

Claus watched, lamenting loud, and scarcely heard

The clatter of a heavy horse below.

This, the Farmer’s horse, returning. He

Was a worthy man, but long he nursed

A curious prejudice against all Sextons,

Till the bare sight of one would make him mad.

So therefore did the Wife regale this one,

The Farmer absent; therefore, too, she now,

At his return, hustled the graveyard-man

Into an empty chest, and thrust the meats

Into the oven, the wines behind the stove.

‘Alack,’ moaned Little Claus, when all the feast

So vanished. ‘Who’s above?’ the Farmer cried.

‘Why liest thou there? Come, rather, in with me.’

Then Claus begged leave to spend the night with him.

‘Yea, that thou shalt do; but first we must eat,’

Said he; and blithely ’gan to sup a dish

Of gruel, which the Woman set before them.

But Claus still hungered tigerishly for all

Those gravied savouries; and relished ill

The milky groats. So now he placed his foot

Upon his bag, which lay beneath the board;

Making it squeak; and when it squeaked, said ‘Hush!’

But saying so, trod harder, and called forth

Still louder noise. ‘Hulloa!’ said his host.

‘What hast thou, in thy bag?’

‘A wizard dwells

In this my bag,’ said Claus; ‘and wot ye now

What he is saying? Why that we should not

Be spooning gruel, when he’s conjured up

Roast meat and pastries hot, inside thy oven there.’

‘Zounds!’ said the Farmer, peering in the stove.

Mutely the Woman drew her cooking forth

And so they ate. Again the enchanter spoke

In voice of chirping leather; telling now

Of three full wine jars, conjured by the stove.

Tongue-tied and fidgeting, the Wife fetched out

Her...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• List of abbreviations
• WILFRED OWEN: SELECTED POETRY AND PROSE
• Critical commentary
• Reading list
• Notes