Poems About War
Curated by the Writory editorial team. Updated September 2026.
Quick answer: Read 13 classic poems about war, from Owen and Brooke to Whitman and Crane. Full texts with notes on how each poet meets the drum, the trench and the loss.
War poetry earns its place by telling the truth. The poems here run from the parade-ground pride of enlistment to the mud and waste of the trenches, and the honest ones do not flinch at either.
Rupert Brooke goes out sure of his cause. Wilfred Owen comes back and writes what the recruiting posters left out. Whitman sits with a family as the news of a son arrives. Stephen Crane says, flatly and bitterly, that war is kind.
Read them together and you get the whole arc, from the drum to the grave.
The Soldier
Rupert Brooke · Georgian
If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave once her flowers to love, her ways to roam;
A body of England's, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.
And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.
If I should die, think only this of me. The most quoted enlistment poem in English, written before the worst of it.
Peace
Rupert Brooke · Georgian
Now, God be thanked Who has watched us with His hour,
And caught our youth, and wakened us from sleeping,
With hand made sure, clear eye, and sharpened power,
To turn, as swimmers into cleanness leaping,
Glad from a world grown old and cold and weary,
Leave the sick hearts that honour could not move,
And half-men, and their dirty songs and dreary,
And all the little emptiness of love!
Oh! we, who have known shame, we have found release there,
Where there's no ill, no grief, but sleep has mending,
Naught broken save this body, lost but breath;
Nothing to shake the laughing heart's long peace there
But only agony, and that has ending;
And the worst friend and enemy is but Death.
Brooke thanks God for the war, glad to turn from a stale world. History would answer him hard.
Disabled
Wilfred Owen · Georgian
He sat in a wheeled chair, waiting for dark,
And shivered in his ghastly suit of grey,
Legless, sewn short at elbow. Through the park
Voices of boys rang saddening like a hymn,
Voices of play and pleasure after day,
Till gathering sleep had mothered them from him.
About this time Town used to swing so gay
When glow-lamps budded in the light-blue trees
And girls glanced lovelier as the air grew dim,
-- In the old times, before he threw away his knees.
Now he will never feel again how slim
Girls' waists are, or how warm their subtle hands,
All of them touch him like some queer disease.
There was an artist silly for his face,
For it was younger than his youth, last year.
Now he is old; his back will never brace;
He's lost his colour very far from here,
Poured it down shell-holes till the veins ran dry,
And half his lifetime lapsed in the hot race,
And leap of purple spurted from his thigh.
One time he liked a bloodsmear down his leg,
After the matches carried shoulder-high.
It was after football, when he'd drunk a peg,
He thought he'd better join. He wonders why . . .
Someone had said he'd look a god in kilts.
That's why; and maybe, too, to please his Meg,
Aye, that was it, to please the giddy jilts,
He asked to join. He didn't have to beg;
Smiling they wrote his lie; aged nineteen years.
Germans he scarcely thought of; and no fears
Of Fear came yet. He thought of jewelled hilts
For daggers in plaid socks; of smart salutes;
And care of arms; and leave; and pay arrears;
Esprit de corps; and hints for young recruits.
And soon, he was drafted out with drums and cheers.
Some cheered him home, but not as crowds cheer Goal.
Only a solemn man who brought him fruits
Thanked him; and then inquired about his soul.
Now, he will spend a few sick years in Institutes,
And do what things the rules consider wise,
And take whatever pity they may dole.
To-night he noticed how the women's eyes
Passed from him to the strong men that were whole.
How cold and late it is! Why don't they come
And put him into bed? Why don't they come?
A legless veteran in a wheeled chair remembers the cheering crowds, and waits for someone to put him to bed.
Spring Offensive
Wilfred Owen · Georgian
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.
Hour after hour they ponder the warm field --
And the far valley behind, where the buttercups
Had blessed with gold their slow boots coming up,
Where even the little brambles would not yield,
But clutched and clung to them like sorrowing hands;
They breathe like trees unstirred.
Till like a cold gust thrilled the little word
At which each body and its soul begird
And tighten them for battle. No alarms
Of bugles, no high flags, no clamorous haste --
Only a lift and flare of eyes that faced
The sun, like a friend with whom their love is done.
O larger shone that smile against the sun, --
Mightier than his whose bounty these have spurned.
So, soon they topped the hill, and raced together
Over an open stretch of herb and heather
Exposed. And instantly the whole sky burned
With fury against them; and soft sudden cups
Opened in thousands for their blood; and the green slopes
Chasmed and steepened sheer to infinite space.
Of them who running on that last high place
Leapt to swift unseen bullets, or went up
On the hot blast and fury of hell's upsurge,
Or plunged and fell away past this world's verge,
Some say God caught them even before they fell.
But what say such as from existence' brink
Ventured but drave too swift to sink.
The few who rushed in the body to enter hell,
And there out-fiending all its fiends and flames
With superhuman inhumanities,
Long-famous glories, immemorial shames --
And crawling slowly back, have by degrees
Regained cool peaceful air in wonder --
Why speak they not of comrades that went under?
Owen's men rest in the long grass, then walk up the last hill into fire. Nature itself turns against them.
The Young Soldier
Wilfred Owen · Georgian
It is not death
Without hereafter
To one in dearth
Of life and its laughter,
Nor the sweet murder
Dealt slow and even
Unto the martyr
Smiling at heaven:
It is the smile
Faint as a (waning) myth,
Faint, and exceeding small
On a boy's murdered mouth.
Do not weep, maiden, for war is kind
Stephen Crane · American
Do not weep, maiden, for war is kind.
Because the lover threw wild hands toward the sky
And the affrighted steed ran on alone,
Do not weep.
War is kind.
Hoarse, booming drums of the regiment,
Little souls who thirst for fight,
These men were born to drill and die.
The unexplained glory flies above them,
Great is the Battle-God, great, and his Kingdom -
A field wher a thousand corpses lie.
Do not weep, babe, for war is kind.
Because your father tumbled in the yellow trenches,
Raged at his breast, gulped and died,
Do not weep.
War is kind.
Swift blazing flag of the regiment,
Eagle with crest of red and gold,
These men were born to drill and die.
Point for them the virtue of slaughter,
Make plain to them the excellence of killing
And a field where a thousand corpses lie.
Mother whose heart hung humble as a button
On the bright splendid shroud of your son,
Do not weep.
War is kind.
Crane's bitterest poem, its false comfort curdling line by line into an indictment.
Come up from the Fields, Father.
Walt Whitman · American
1
COME up from the fields, father, here’s a letter from our Pete;
And come to the front door, mother--here’s a letter from thy dear son.
2
Lo, ’tis autumn;
Lo, where the trees, deeper green, yellower and redder,
Cool and sweeten Ohio’s villages, with leaves fluttering in the moderate wind;
Where apples ripe in the orchards hang, and grapes on the trellis’d vines;
(Smell you the smell of the grapes on the vines?
Smell you the buckwheat, where the bees were lately buzzing?)
Above all, lo, the sky, so calm, so transparent after the rain, and with wondrous clouds;
Below, too, all calm, all vital and beautiful--and the farm prospers well.
3
Down in the fields all prospers well;
But now from the fields come, father--come at the daughter’s call;
And come to the entry, mother--to the front door come, right away.
Fast as she can she hurries--something ominous--her steps trembling;
She does not tarry to smoothe her hair, nor adjust her cap.
Open the envelope quickly;
O this is not our son’s writing, yet his name is sign’d;
O a strange hand writes for our dear son--O stricken mother’s soul!
All swims before her eyes--flashes with black--she catches the main words only;
Sentences broken--gun-shot wound in the breast, cavalry skirmish, taken to
hospital,
At present low, but will soon be better.
4
Ah, now, the single figure to me,
Amid all teeming and wealthy Ohio, with all its cities and farms,
Sickly white in the face, and dull in the head, very faint,
By the jamb of a door leans.
Grieve not so, dear mother, (the just-grown daughter speaks through her sobs;
The little sisters huddle around, speechless and dismay’d;)
See, dearest mother, the letter says Pete will soon be better.
5
Alas, poor boy, he will never be better, (nor may-be needs to be better, that brave and
simple
soul;)
While they stand at home at the door, he is dead already;
The only son is dead.
But the mother needs to be better;
She, with thin form, presently drest in black;
By day her meals untouch’d--then at night fitfully sleeping, often waking,
In the midnight waking, weeping, longing with one deep longing,
O that she might withdraw unnoticed--silent from life, escape and withdraw,
To follow, to seek, to be with her dear dead son.
A letter comes to an Ohio farm. Whitman follows it into the house and stays with the mother who will not eat or sleep.
Ashes of Soldiers.
Walt Whitman · American
ASHES of soldiers!
As I muse, retrospective, murmuring a chant in thought,
Lo! the war resumes--again to my sense your shapes,
And again the advance of armies.
Noiseless as mists and vapors,
From their graves in the trenches ascending,
From the cemeteries all through Virginia and Tennessee,
From every point of the compass, out of the countless unnamed graves,
In wafted clouds, in myraids large, or squads of twos or threes, or single ones, they
come,
And silently gather round me.
Now sound no note, O trumpeters!
Not at the head of my cavalry, parading on spirited horses,
With sabres drawn and glist’ning, and carbines by their thighs--(ah, my brave
horsemen!
My handsome, tan-faced horsemen! what life, what joy and pride,
With all the perils, were yours!)
Nor you drummers--neither at reveille, at dawn,
Nor the long roll alarming the camp--nor even the muffled beat for a burial;
Nothing from you, this time, O drummers, bearing my warlike drums.
But aside from these, and the marts of wealth, and the crowded promenade,
Admitting around me comrades close, unseen by the rest, and voiceless,
The slain elate and alive again--the dust and debris alive,
I chant this chant of my silent soul, in the name of all dead soldiers.
Faces so pale, with wondrous eyes, very dear, gather closer yet;
Draw close, but speak not.
Phantoms of countless lost!
Invisible to the rest, henceforth become my companions!
Follow me ever! desert me not, while I live.
Sweet are the blooming cheeks of the living! sweet are the musical voices sounding!
But sweet, ah sweet, are the dead, with their silent eyes.
Dearest comrades! all is over and long gone;
But love is not over--and what love, O comrades!
Perfume from battle-fields rising--up from foetor arising.
Perfume therefore my chant, O love! immortal Love!
Give me to bathe the memories of all dead soldiers,
Shroud them, embalm them, cover them all over with tender pride!
Perfume all! make all wholesome!
Make these ashes to nourish and blossom,
O love! O chant! solve all, fructify all with the last chemistry.
Give me exhaustless--make me a fountain,
That I exhale love from me wherever I go, like a moist perennial dew,
For the ashes of all dead soldiers.
Adieu to a Soldier.
Walt Whitman · American
ADIEU, O soldier!
You of the rude campaigning, (which we shared,)
The rapid march, the life of the camp,
The hot contention of opposing fronts--the long manoeuver,
Red battles with their slaughter,--the stimulus--the strong, terrific game,
Spell of all brave and manly hearts--the trains of Time through you, and like of you,
all
fill’d,
With war, and war’s expression.
Adieu, dear comrade!
Your mission is fulfill’d--but I, more warlike,
Myself, and this contentious soul of mine,
Still on our own campaigning bound,
Through untried roads, with ambushes, opponents lined,
Through many a sharp defeat and many a crisis--often baffled,
Here marching, ever marching on, a war fight out--aye here,
To fiercer, weightier battles give expression.
Home They Brought Her Warrior Dead
Lord Alfred Tennyson · Victorian
Home they brought her warrior dead:
She nor swooned, nor uttered cry:
All her maidens, watching, said,
‘She must weep or she will die.’
Then they praised him, soft and low,
Called him worthy to be loved,
Truest friend and noblest foe;
Yet she neither spoke nor moved.
Stole a maiden from her place,
Lightly to the warrior stepped,
Took the face-cloth from the face;
Yet she neither moved nor wept.
Rose a nurse of ninety years,
Set his child upon her knee--
Like summer tempest came her tears--
‘Sweet my child, I live for thee.’
They bring the dead man home and his widow cannot weep, until a nurse lays the child on her knee.
Song of the Battle Eve
Thomas Moore · Romantic
(Time -- the Ninth Century)
To-morrow, comrade, we
On the battle-plain must be,
There to conquer, or both lie low!
The morning star is up --
But there's wine still in the cup,
And we'll take another quaff, ere we go, boy, go;
We'll take another quaff, ere we go.
'Tis true, in manliest eyes
A passing tear will rise,
When we think of the friends we leave lone;
But what can wailing do?
See, our goblet's weeping too!
With its tears we'll chase away our own, boy, our own;
With its tears we'll chase away our own.
But daylight's stealing on;
The last that o'er us shone
Saw our children around us play;
The next -- ah! where shall we
And those rosy urchins be?
But -- no matter -- grasp thy sword and away, boy, away;
No matter -- grasp thy sword and away!
Let those, who brook the chain
Of Saxon or of Dane,
Ignobly by their fire-sides stay;
One sigh to home be given,
One heartfelt prayer to heaven,
Then, for Erin and her cause, boy, hurra! hurra! hurra!
Then, for Erin and her cause, hurra!
War Song
Thomas Moore · Romantic
Remember the Glories of Brien the Brave
Remember the glories of Brien the brave,
Though the days of the hero are o'er,
Though lost to Mononia and cold to the grave,
He returns to Kinkora no more.
That star of the field, which so often hath pour'd
Its beam on the battle, is set;
But enough of its glory remains on each sword,
To light us to victory yet.
Mononia! when Nature embellish'd the tint
Of thy fields, and thy mountains so fair,
Did she ever intend that a tyrant should print
The footstep of slavery there?
No! Freedom, whose smile we shall never resign,
Go, tell our invaders, the Danes,
That 'tis sweeter to bleed for an age at thy shrine,
Than to sleep but a moment in chains.
Forget not our wounded companions who stoood
In the day of distress by our side;
While the moss of the valley grew red with their blood,
They stirr'd not, but conquer'd and died.
That sun which now blesses our arms with his light,
Saw them fall upon Ossory's plain; --
Oh! let him not blush, when he leaves us to-night,
To find that they fell there in vain.
The Soldier
Gerard Manley Hopkins · Victorian
Yes. Why do we бll, seeing of a soldier, bless him? bless
Our redcoats, our tars? Both these being, the greater part,
But frail clay, nay but foul clay. Here it is: the heart,
Since, proud, it calls the calling manly, gives a guess
That, hopes that, makesbelieve, the men must be no less;
It fancies, feigns, deems, dears the artist after his art;
And fain will find as sterling all as all is smart,
And scarlet wear the spirit of wбr thйre express.
Mark Christ our King. He knows war, served this soldiering through;
He of all can handle a rope best. There he bides in bliss
Now, and sйeing somewhйre some mбn do all that man can do,
For love he leans forth, needs his neck must fall on, kiss,
And cry 'O Christ-done deed! So God-made-flesh does too:
Were I come o'er again' cries Christ 'it should be this'.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the most famous war poems?
Rupert Brooke's 'The Soldier' and Wilfred Owen's trench poems are among the best known of the First World War. Stephen Crane's 'War Is Kind' and Whitman's Civil War poems are the great American answers to them.
What is the difference between Brooke and Owen?
Rupert Brooke wrote early, with the idealism of a man who had not yet seen the front. Wilfred Owen wrote from the trenches themselves, and his poems carry the pity and horror Brooke never lived to feel.
Which poets wrote about war?
Wilfred Owen, Rupert Brooke, Walt Whitman, Stephen Crane, Thomas Moore and Alfred Tennyson all wrote memorably about war. This collection gathers strong poems from across their ranks.
How to write a poem about war
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