Poems: Spring Offensive by Wilfred Owen — Read

Halted against the shade of a last hill, / They fed, and, lying easy, were at ease / And, finding comfortable chests and knees / Carelessly slept. But many there stood still / To face the stark, blank sky beyond the ridge, / Knowing their feet had come to the end of the world.

Marvelling they stood, and watched the long grass swirled / By the May breeze, murmurous with wasp and midge, / For though the summer oozed into their veins / Like the injected drug for their bones' pains, / Sharp on their souls hung the imminent line of grass, / Fearfully flashed the sky's mysterious glass.