The Dug-Out

Why do you lie with your legs ungainly huddled,
And one arm bent across your sullen cold
Exhausted face? It hurts my heart to watch you,
Deep-shadow'd from the candle's guttering gold;
And you wonder why I shake you by the shoulder;
Drowsy, you mumble and sigh and turn your head....
_You are too young to fall asleep for ever;_
And when you sleep you remind me of the dead._

About Wilfred Owen

War poet whose visceral, anti-war verse exposed the horrors of trench warfare; killed one week before Armistice.

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