These Men Are Worth Your Tears. You

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 English Say, Yours Truly, And Mean It. The Italians Say, I Kiss Your Feet, And Mean, I Kick Your Head.

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

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.

The Old Happiness Is Unreturning. Boy's Griefs Are Not So Grievous As Youth's Yearning. Boys Have No Sadness Sadder Than Our Hope.