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.

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest to children ardent for some desperate glory. The old lie: It is sweet and fitting that you should die for your country.

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.

Red lips are not so red as the stained stones kissed by the English dead.

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

I was a boy when I first realized that the fullest life liveable was a Poet's

Courage was mine, and I had mystery, Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery: To miss the march of this retreating world Into vain citadels that are not walled.