Futility

Move him into the sun⁠—
Gently its touch awoke him once,
At home, whispering of fields unsown.
Always it woke him, even in France,
Until this morning and this snow.
If anything might rouse him now
The kind old sun will know.

Think how it wakes the seeds⁠—
Woke, once, the clays of a cold star.
Are limbs so dear-achieved, are sides
Full-nerved⁠—still warm⁠—too hard to stir?
Was it for this the clay grew tall?
—O what made fatuous sunbeams toil
To break earth’s sleep at all?

Where this text comes from

First published in Poems (1920). First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established. [1] [2]

Structure read from the source's markup; the words have not been compared against a page scan. Last checked 2026-08-12.

Taken from Standard Ebooks, standardebooks/wilfred-owen_poetry, poetry.xhtml. Rights: public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931).

Earlier sources (2)

This poem as JSON or plain text. Line anchors #L1#L14.

Cite this poem

Wilfred Owen (1893–1918). “Futility.” First published in Poems (1920). Text: Poem Index, https://poemindex.org/wilfred-owen/futility/. Append #L14 to cite line 14, or #L4-L9 for lines 4–9.

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