{
 "id": "wilfred-owen/apologia-pro-poemate-meo",
 "title": "Apologia Pro Poemate Meo",
 "poet": "Wilfred Owen",
 "poet_slug": "wilfred-owen",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Poems",
 "book_slug": "poems",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 2,
 "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": 36,
  "n_stanzas": 9,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 55,
  "max_indent": 2
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "I, too, saw God through mud⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The mud that cracked on cheeks when wretches smiled.",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "War brought more glory to their eyes than blood,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "And gave their laughs more glee than shakes a child.",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Merry it was to laugh there⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where death becomes absurd and life absurder.",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "For power was on us as we slashed bones bare",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Not to feel sickness or remorse of murder.",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I, too, have dropped off fear⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Behind the barrage, dead as my platoon,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "And sailed my spirit surging, light and clear",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Past the entanglement where hopes lay strewn;",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And witnessed exultation⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Faces that used to curse me, scowl for scowl,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Shine and lift up with passion of oblation,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Seraphic for an hour; though they were foul.",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I have made fellowships⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Untold of happy lovers in old song.",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "For love is not the binding of fair lips",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "With the soft silk of eyes that look and long,",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "By Joy, whose ribbon slips⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But wound with war’s hard wire whose stakes are strong;",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Bound with the bandage of the arm that drips;",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Knit in the welding of the rifle-thong.",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I have perceived much beauty",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the hoarse oaths that kept our courage straight;",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Heard music in the silentness of duty;",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Found peace where shell-storms spouted reddest spate.",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Nevertheless, except you share",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With them in hell the sorrowful dark of hell,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Whose world is but the trembling of a flare,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "And heaven but as the highway for a shell,",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "You shall not hear their mirth:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You shall not come to think them well content",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "By any jest of mine. These men are worth",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Your tears: You are not worth their merriment.",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ]
 ]
}