{
 "id": "wilfred-owen/the-dead-beat",
 "title": "The Dead-Beat",
 "poet": "Wilfred Owen",
 "poet_slug": "wilfred-owen",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Poems",
 "book_slug": "poems",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 12,
 "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": 20,
  "n_stanzas": 4,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 53,
  "max_indent": 3
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "He dropped⁠—more sullenly than wearily,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lay stupid like a cod, heavy like meat,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And none of us could kick him to his feet;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Just blinked at my revolver, blearily;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "—Didn’t appear to know a war was on,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or see the blasted trench at which he stared.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“I’ll do ’em in,” he whined. “If this hand’s spared,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I’ll murder them, I will.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "A low voice said,",
    "indent": 3
   },
   {
    "text": "“It’s Blighty, p’raps, he sees; his pluck’s all gone,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Dreaming of all the valiant, that aren’t dead:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Bold uncles, smiling ministerially;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Maybe his brave young wife, getting her fun",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In some new home, improved materially.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It’s not these stiffs have crazed him; nor the Hun.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "We sent him down at last, out of the way.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Unwounded;⁠—stout lad, too, before that strafe.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Malingering? Stretcher-bearers winked, “Not half!”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Next day I heard the Doc.’s well-whiskied laugh:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“That scum you sent last night soon died. Hooray!”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}