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.

The old Lie:Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori.

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

All a poet can do today is warn.

Never fear: Thank Home, and Poetry, and the Force behind both.

Escape? There is one unwatched way: your eyes. O Beauty! Keep me good that secret gate.

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