{
 "id": "wilfred-owen/a-terre",
 "title": "A Terre",
 "poet": "Wilfred Owen",
 "poet_slug": "wilfred-owen",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Poems",
 "book_slug": "poems",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 20,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1920,
  "venue": "Poems (1920)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/poemsowenwil00owenrich",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1034"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/wilfred-owen_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1034",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100547417"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-12"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 66,
  "n_stanzas": 6,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 52,
  "max_indent": 3
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Sit on the bed; I’m blind, and three parts shell,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Be careful; can’t shake hands now; never shall.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Both arms have mutinied against me⁠—brutes.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My fingers fidget like ten idle brats.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I tried to peg out soldierly⁠—no use!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One dies of war like any old disease.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This bandage feels like pennies on my eyes.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I have my medals?⁠—Discs to make eyes close.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My glorious ribbons?⁠—Ripped from my own back",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In scarlet shreds. (That’s for your poetry book.)",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "A short life and a merry one, my brick!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We used to say we’d hate to live dead old⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet now⁠ ⁠… I’d willingly be puffy, bald,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And patriotic. Buffers catch from boys",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "At least the jokes hurled at them. I suppose",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Little I’d ever teach a son, but hitting,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shooting, war, hunting, all the arts of hurting.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Well, that’s what I learnt⁠—that, and making money.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Your fifty years ahead seem none too many?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Tell me how long I’ve got? God! For one year",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To help myself to nothing more than air!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One Spring! Is one too good to spare, too long?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Spring wind would work its own way to my lung,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And grow me legs as quick as lilac-shoots.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My servant’s lamed, but listen how he shouts!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When I’m lugged out, he’ll still be good for that.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Here in this mummy-case, you know, I’ve thought",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "How well I might have swept his floors for ever,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I’d ask no night off when the bustle’s over,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Enjoying so the dirt. Who’s prejudiced",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Against a grimed hand when his own’s quite dust,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Less live than specks that in the sun-shafts turn,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Less warm than dust that mixes with arms’ tan?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I’d love to be a sweep, now, black as Town,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yes, or a muckman. Must I be his load?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "O Life, Life, let me breathe⁠—a dug-out rat!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Not worse than ours the existences rats lead⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nosing along at night down some safe vat,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They find a shell-proof home before they rot.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Dead men may envy living mites in cheese,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or good germs even. Microbes have their joys,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And subdivide, and never come to death,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Certainly flowers have the easiest time on earth.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“I shall be one with nature, herb, and stone.”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shelley would tell me. Shelley would be stunned;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The dullest Tommy hugs that fancy now.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Pushing up daisies,” is their creed, you know.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To grain, then, go my fat, to buds my sap,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For all the usefulness there is in soap.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "D’you think the Boche will ever stew man-soup?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Some day, no doubt, if⁠ ⁠…",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Friend, be very sure",
    "indent": 3
   },
   {
    "text": "I shall be better off with plants that share",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "More peaceably the meadow and the shower.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Soft rains will touch me⁠—as they could touch once,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And nothing but the sun shall make me ware.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Your guns may crash around me. I’ll not hear;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or, if I wince, I shall not know I wince.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Don’t take my soul’s poor comfort for your jest.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Soldiers may grow a soul when turned to fronds,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But here the thing’s best left at home with friends.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "My soul’s a little grief, grappling your chest,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To climb your throat on sobs; easily chased",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On other sighs and wiped by fresher winds.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Carry my crying spirit till it’s weaned",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To do without what blood remained these wounds.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}