If I Have To Be A Soldier

Whatever Mourns When Many Leave These Shores: Whatever Shares The Eternal Reciprocity Of Tears.

All The Poet Can Do Today Is Warn. That Is Why True Poets Must Be Truthful.

The Old Lie:dulce Et Decorum Est Pro Patria Mori.

I Am Not Concerned With Poetry. My Subject Is War, And The Pity Of War. The Poetry Is In The Pity. Yet These Elegies Are To This Generation In No Sense Conciliatory. They May Be To The Next. All A Poet Can Do Today Is Warn. That Is Why The True Poets Must Be Truthful.

Then, When Much Blood Had Clogged Their Chariot-wheels I Would Go Up And Wash Them From Sweet Wells, Even With Truths That Lie Too Deep For Taint. I Would Have Poured My Spirit Without Stint But Not Through Wounds; Not On The Cess Of War.