It Seemed That Out Of Battle I

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.

I Dreamed Kind Jesus Fouled The Big-gun Gears; And Caused A Permanent Stoppage In All Bolts; And Buckled With A Smile Mausers And Colts; And Rusted Every Bayonet With His Tears.

After All My Years Of Playing Soldiers, And Then Of Reading History, I Have Almost A Mania To Be In The East, To See Fighting, And To Serve.

The War Affects Me Less Than It Ought. But I Can Do No Service To Anybody By Agitating For News Or Making Dole Over The Slaughter.

I Am Only Conscious Of Any Satisfaction In Scientific Reading Or Thinking When It Rounds Off Into A Poetical Generality And Vagueness.