{
 "id": "wilfred-owen/exposure",
 "title": "Exposure",
 "poet": "Wilfred Owen",
 "poet_slug": "wilfred-owen",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Poems",
 "book_slug": "poems",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 13,
 "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": 40,
  "n_stanzas": 8,
  "n_parts": 2,
  "longest_line_chars": 68,
  "max_indent": 3
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [
  {
   "ordinal": "I",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    0,
    4
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "II",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    4,
    8
   ]
  }
 ],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knife us⁠ ⁠…",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wearied we keep awake because the night is silent⁠ ⁠…",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Low drooping flares confuse our memory of the salient⁠ ⁠…",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Worried by silence, sentries whisper, curious, nervous,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But nothing happens.",
    "indent": 3
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Watching, we hear the mad gusts tugging on the wire.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like twitching agonies of men among its brambles.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Northward incessantly, the flickering gunnery rumbles,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Far off, like a dull rumour of some other war.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What are we doing here?",
    "indent": 3
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The poignant misery of dawn begins to grow⁠ ⁠…",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We only know war lasts, rain soaks, and clouds sag stormy.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Dawn massing in the east her melancholy army",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Attacks once more in ranks on shivering ranks of gray,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But nothing happens.",
    "indent": 3
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Sudden successive flights of bullets streak the silence.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Less deadly than the air that shudders black with snow,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With sidelong flowing flakes that flock, pause and renew,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We watch them wandering up and down the wind’s nonchalance,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But nothing happens.",
    "indent": 3
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Pale flakes with lingering stealth come feeling for our faces⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We cringe in holes, back on forgotten dreams, and stare, snow-dazed,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Deep into grassier ditches. So we drowse, sun-dozed,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Littered with blossoms trickling where the blackbird fusses.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is it that we are dying?",
    "indent": 3
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Slowly our ghosts drag home: glimpsing the sunk fires glozed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With crusted dark-red jewels; crickets jingle there;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For hours the innocent mice rejoice: the house is theirs;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shutters and doors all closed: on us the doors are closed⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We turn back to our dying.",
    "indent": 3
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Since we believe not otherwise can kind fires burn;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor ever suns smile true on child, or field, or fruit.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For God’s invincible spring our love is made afraid;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Therefore, not loath, we lie out here; therefore were born,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For love of God seems dying.",
    "indent": 3
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "To-night, His frost will fasten on this mud and us,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shrivelling many hands and puckering foreheads crisp.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The burying-party, picks and shovels in their shaking grasp,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pause over half-known faces. All their eyes are ice,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But nothing happens.",
    "indent": 3
   }
  ]
 ]
}