{
 "id": "wilfred-owen/smile-smile-smile",
 "title": "Smile, Smile, Smile",
 "poet": "Wilfred Owen",
 "poet_slug": "wilfred-owen",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Poems",
 "book_slug": "poems",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 18,
 "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": 26,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 52,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Head to limp head, the sunk-eyed wounded scanned",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yesterday’s Mail; the casualties (typed small)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And (large) Vast Booty from our Latest Haul.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Also, they read of Cheap Homes, not yet planned;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For, said the paper, “When this war is done",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The men’s first instinct will be making homes.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Meanwhile their foremost need is aerodromes,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It being certain war has just begun.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Peace would do wrong to our undying dead⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The sons we offered might regret they died",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If we got nothing lasting in their stead.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We must be solidly indemnified.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Though all be worthy Victory which all bought,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We rulers sitting in this ancient spot",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Would wrong our very selves if we forgot",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The greatest glory will be theirs who fought,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who kept this nation in integrity.”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nation?⁠—The half-limbed readers did not chafe",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But smiled at one another curiously",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like secret men who know their secret safe.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This is the thing they know and never speak,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That England one by one had fled to France",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(Not many elsewhere now save under France).",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pictures of these broad smiles appear each week,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And people in whose voice real feeling rings",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Say: How they smile! They’re happy now, poor things.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}