So Secretly, Like Wrongs Hushed-up,

Children Are Not Meant To Be Studied, But Enjoyed. Only By Studying To Be Pleased Do We Understand Them.

Above All I Am Not Concerned With Poetry. My Subject Is War, And The Pity Of War. The Poetry Is In The Pity.

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.

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, Might, Majesty, Dominion, Or Power, Except War. Above All I Am Not Concerned With Poetry. My Subject Is War, And The Pity Of War. The Poetry Is In The Pity.

The Young Soldier It Is Not Death Without Hereafter To One In Dearth Of Life And Its Laughter, Nor The Sweet Murder Dealt Slow And Even Unto The Martyr Smiling At Heaven: It Is The Smile Faint As A (waning) Myth, Faint, And Exceeding Small On A Boy's Murdered Mouth.