My subject is war, and the pity of war.

No-man's land under snow is like the face of the moon: chaotic, crater ridden, uninhabitable, awful, the abode of madness.

Those who, like the beasts, have no such Hope, pass their old age shrouded with an inward gloom.

The universal pervasion of ugliness, hideous landscapes, vile noises, foul language...everything. Unnatural, broken, blasted; the distortion of the dead, whose unburiable bodies sit outside the dug outs all day, all night, the most execrable sights on earth. In poetry we call them the most glorious.

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? Only the monstrous anger of the guns.

The English say, Yours Truly, and mean it. The Italians say, I kiss your feet, and mean, I kick your head.

Above all I am not concerned with Poetry. My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity.