Siegfried Sassoon, his friend and fellow poet, put
together this volume. The 1920 edition was the first edition of Owen's
poems, the 1921 reprint (of which this is a transcript) added one
more--and nothing else happened until Edmund Blunden's 1931 edition.
Even with that edition, there remained gaps, and several more editions
added more and more poems and fragments, in various forms, as it was
difficult to tell which of Owen's drafts were his final ones, until Jon
Stallworthy's "Complete Poems and Fragments" (1983) included all that
could be found, and tried to put them in chronological order, with the
latest revisions, etc.

Therefore, it should not be surprising if some or most of these poems
differ from later editions.

After Owen's death, his writings gradually gained pre-eminence, so that,
although virtually unknown during the war, he came into high regard.
Benjamin Britten, the British composer who set nine of Owen's works as
the text of his "War Requiem" (shortly after the Second World War),
called Owen "by far our greatest war poet, and one of the most original
poets of this century." (Owen is especially noted for his use of
pararhyme.) Five of those nine texts are some form of poems included
here, to wit: 'Anthem for Doomed Youth', 'Futility', 'Parable of the Old
Men and the Young', 'The End', and 'Strange Meeting'. The other four
were '[Bugles Sang]', 'The Next War', 'Sonnet [Be slowly lifted up]' and
'At a Calvary Near the Ancre'--all of which the reader may wish to
pursue, being some of Owen's finest work. Fortunately, the poem which I
consider his best, and which is one of his most quoted--'Dulce et
Decorum est', is included in this volume.

Transcriber's Specific Notes:--

Blighty: England, or a wound that would take a soldier home (to England).

S. I. W.: Self Inflicted Wound.

Parable of the Old Men and the Young: A retold story from the Bible,
but with a different ending. The phrase "Abram bound the youth with
belts and straps" refers to the youth who went to war, with all their
equipment belted and strapped on. Other versions of this poem have an
additional line.

Dulce et Decorum est: The phrase "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori"
is a Latin phrase from Horace, and translates literally something like
"Sweet and proper it is for your country (fatherland) to die." The poem
was originally intended to be addressed to an author who had written war
poems for children. "Dim through