{
 "id": "wilfred-owen/spring-offensive",
 "title": "Spring Offensive",
 "poet": "Wilfred Owen",
 "poet_slug": "wilfred-owen",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Poems",
 "book_slug": "poems",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 14,
 "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": 46,
  "n_stanzas": 7,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 57,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Halted against the shade of a last hill,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They fed, and, lying easy, were at ease",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And, finding comfortable chests and knees",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Carelessly slept. But many there stood still",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To face the stark, blank sky beyond the ridge,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Knowing their feet had come to the end of the world.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Marvelling they stood, and watched the long grass swirled",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By the May breeze, murmurous with wasp and midge,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For though the summer oozed into their veins",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like the injected drug for their bones’ pains,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sharp on their souls hung the imminent line of grass,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fearfully flashed the sky’s mysterious glass.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Hour after hour they ponder the warm field⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the far valley behind, where the buttercups",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Had blessed with gold their slow boots coming up,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where even the little brambles would not yield,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But clutched and clung to them like sorrowing hands;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They breathe like trees unstirred.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Till like a cold gust thrilled the little word",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "At which each body and its soul begird",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And tighten them for battle. No alarms",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of bugles, no high flags, no clamorous haste⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Only a lift and flare of eyes that faced",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The sun, like a friend with whom their love is done.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O larger shone that smile against the sun⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Mightier than his whose bounty these have spurned.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "So, soon they topped the hill, and raced together",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Over an open stretch of herb and heather",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Exposed. And instantly the whole sky burned",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With fury against them; and soft sudden cups",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Opened in thousands for their blood; and the green slopes",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Chasmed and steepened sheer to infinite space.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Of them who running on that last high place",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Leapt to swift unseen bullets, or went up",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On the hot blast and fury of hell’s upsurge,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or plunged and fell away past this world’s verge,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Some say God caught them even before they fell.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But what say such as from existence’ brink",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ventured but drave too swift to sink.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The few who rushed in the body to enter hell,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And there out-fiending all its fiends and flames",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With superhuman inhumanities,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Long-famous glories, immemorial shames⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And crawling slowly back, have by degrees",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Regained cool peaceful air in wonder⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Why speak they not of comrades that went under?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}