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Wilfred Owen
Wilfred Owen
Wilfred Owen is considered by some to be the greatest poet of the First World War. His realistic, often horrifying depictions of gas and trench warfare stand in dark contrast to the patriotic perceptions of others who wrote about war at the time...
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Futility  
by Wilfred Owen

Move him into the sun—
Gently its touch awoke him once,
At home, whispering of fields unsown.
Always it woke him, even in France,
Until this morning and this snow.
If anything might rouse him now
The kind old sun will know.

Think how it wakes the seeds—
Woke once the clays of a cold star.
Are limbs, so dear-achieved, are sides
Full-nerved, still warm, too hard to stir?
Was it for this the clay grew tall?
—O what made fatuous sunbeams toil
To break earth's sleep at all?
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