Who is Wilfred Owen’s is considered one among the war poets.

What is a War poetry?

It is a literary genre that came into origin at the time of the First World War in Europe and
the term war poets it's applied to the soldiers and the civilians who wrote poetry or who
found in poetry and expression of their anguish their trauma their fear regarding the war.

The war poetry mainly talks about the experience of the war and the impact that it had on
the people war poetry has left a mark in English literature.

It is often war poetry was antiwar because the World War was a great tragedy or one of the
greatest tragedies that humanity so far has come across and it was a war that was spread all
over the world.

Wilfred Owens lost his life fighting in the war. Wilfred Owen for instance was just 25 when
his life was cut short, he died in action in battle and the poetry revealed the public the raw
feelings of these young men and their anguish their agony the fear the helplessness.

Thus war poetry is a very rich chapter though it was the circumstances and the setting was
quite unfortunate it is definitely a very rich chapter in world literature.

About the poet: Wilfred Owen the full name is Wilfred Edward Salter Owen he was born in
1893 in a place called Oswestry in it is a village on the Welsh border of Shropshire and his
parents Thomas and Susan both were of Welsh origin, and he was the oldest Wilfred Owen
was the oldest of four children.
He was not very attached to his father, but he was very close to his mother and being the
eldest of the four he was a very responsible child, and he assumed the role of the Big
Brother which of course he made it a point to see that the others were taken care of.
He went on to graduate from the Shrewsbury technical school and he wanted to join the
London University but unfortunately he could not win a scholarship to the university and he
also had plans for a religious vocation and so he worked as an unpaid lay assistant to
reverend Herbert Wigan and it was during this time that as part of his job as the assistant to
the reverend he took part in programs where he had to take care of the poor and the sick in
the parish and this gave him an insight into many of the social and the economic problems
that the people are faced. He really wanted to help them and the philanthropist in him was
awakened during this stint trying to help the people.
He was quite disillusioned with the church because he felt that the church was not doing
enough the Church of England was not doing enough to alleviate the sufferings of the
people.
He felt that the church could do something more but it was not really reaching out to the
people thus he started getting disillusioned with the church and in the meantime he had
also developed an interest in writing poetry.
He read extensively and he used to write poetry in his spare time.
He dwelt upon various options as carrier options that is he thought of becoming a poet and
he was interested in music too and even graphic art.
He went over to France and he spent some time there in the Bordeaux and institution in
Bordeaux and he was also a tutor to two children in a French home and so he fell in love
with the French culture and the French countryside by the time the world was slowly moving
into towards this World War.
By 1915 He enlisted himself in October 1915 he came back from France and before that and
he enlisted in the army in the British Army and he was sent to France as part of the
Lancaster Lancashire Fusiliers and then the war started in earnest and he had to take part in
the war proper he experienced intense physical privations during the war he used to write to
his mother about his experiences at the war front and about how about how he had to
spend so many days without even being able to wash his face or change his clothes and how
he had to go without food for four or five days how he had to spend a couple of days hiding
in a hole and just hardly 6 feet away from him was the dead body of his friend so all this
experiences scarred his mind he was very much affected by these experiences and later it is
said that he had to be hospitalized due to a brain concussion because he fell into a pit he
began to experience severe headaches and due to shell shock and then he had to again once
again be hospitalized back in Edinburgh it is there that he came across sigfried Sassoon
another war poet and they instantly struck off as a great friends and it was Sassoon who
encouraged the poetic endeavors of Wilfred Owen and Owen of course I mentioned that he
was very much interested in poetry he was a great admirer of kids and Shelly and he read
extensively poetry of WBA send a horsemen and many other contemporary writers and it
was Siegfried Sassoon who was already an established poet by then and who belonged to a
very wealthy family who had a lot of contacts it was he who introduced Wilfred Owen to the
literary circles and when he spoke to other great writers he was really inspired and he felt
that finally he had arrived at the carrier that he really wanted to take up and he wrote very
exuberantly to his mother saying that he has finally found what he has and what he wanted
to do with his life but then unfortunately he died soon after and only five of his poems were
published while he was alive and he had made a selection of his poems and it is said that
most of his poems though he started started writing early most of his most famous poems
were written within a span of one year in which somewhere between 17/19/17 and 1918 he
died in October 1918 so it was between in a short span of one year that most of his poems
were written a creative output it happened during that time and his most famous poems
God anthem for the doomed youth dulls A decorum futility the one that we're going to deal
with the strange meeting then smile smile smile arms and the boy and he had made a
random selections of his poems and he had also written a brief description or a preface to
each of this poems and those small descriptions give us a very clear insight into what was
happening to his mind or what he had in his mind when he wrote each of those poems after
he recovered from his ill health he chose to go back to the war to war though he was not
interested in war he somehow believed that being there taking part in the battle is very
important for him and though he did not support the cause of the war he believed that he
should be there along with his fellow men that he should not run away from his
responsibilities Owen himself had said I shall be better able to cry my outcry playing my part
so I shall be better I shall be better able to cry my outcry playing my part actually it is his
experience of the war that gave him such a deep insight into the sufferings that people
endeavored during the war otherwise he wouldn't have been able to write such incisive
poetry that went directly into the heart of the reader that gave the people an idea that war
was not all glorious that war was a thing to be condemned war was something never to be
repeated so it is the poetry of people like Wilfred Owen who helped in bringing the
awareness to the general public he was killed in action in October and it is a week later that
his mother was informed of his death and that was the day after an Armistice was declared
and the World War ended so it was very sad that so many young men like Wilfred Owen and
and Wilfred Alvin was just 25 when he died so so many young lives who could have video
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Gabbana a new fragrance for her you know blossomed into great writers or great in so many
ways they were all cut short because of this pointless war not only in England Germany
Russia France so many many youngsters were killed and that was the tragedy of war at the
end of it when you look at it and try to take a do a summing up who actually benefits from
the war nobody it is such a sad reality and coming to the poem titled strange meeting this
poem was published posthumously in 1919 in an anthology edited by Edith sitwell titled
wheels and anthology of worse and many writers and critics have praise the pool and TS
Eliot has referred to strange meeting as one of the most moving pieces of verse inspired by
the war now

The title the strange meeting was borrowed or these the term the strange meeting was
borrowed from a poem of Shelly titled revolt of Islam it comes from a line there strange
meeting and it is a poem that is termed enigmatic because oftentimes we find that difficult
to interpret what actually food has to talk about the

The poem it has a dreamlike background two soldiers meet but it is not in the battlefield
that they meet they meet in a world after their death and the full implication of this title
strange meeting can only be discussed after we read support so let's reserve that for later
and let me just read the poem to you it is not a very long poem and the rhyme is quite
irregular there is no set rhyme scheme and Wilfred Owen always employed A para rhyme in
his the worse where there is no complete rhyme but just part of the word rhymes he always
used paradigm and of course he used that with a purpose because a proper and complete
rhyme would give the poem a sense of a well-being and harmony which he did not want to
be expressed in his poetry he wanted to bring out the disharmony the dissonance and so he
purposefully chose this paradigm because he wanted to the reader to feel the unhappiness
in his poetry he wanted to show that things were not well with this world and that is why he
chose to use the technique of paradigm let me read the

first few lines first and then I'll do the explanation it seemed that out of battle I escaped
down some profound dull channel long since scooped through granades which Titanic wars
had groined yet also their encumbered sleepers groaned too fast and thought or death to be
restored to be disturbed then as it proved them one sprang up and stared with pity the
recognition in fixed eyes lifting distressful hands as if to bless and by his smile I knew that
silent hall by his death smile I knew we stood in hell so there

He introduces us to the setting of the poem he says that it seemed that out of that lie
escaped so here we understand that it is a soldier who is talking to us and because it is he's
talking about the battle and he says that I found myself in a place where I seem to be
removed from the bat from the back that out of the battle I escaped down some profound
dull tunnel and he seemed he found himself standing inside a kind of a deep tunnel a dull
tunnel a dim lit um gloomy kind of a place and he was walking through a tunnel and long
since scooped through granites which Titanic wars had groined so it seemed to be a a
subterranean attachment something under the ground and it was it seemed as if it had been
scooped through granites because it was the walls seem to be made of dark granite stone
and it was this this tunnel it seemed to have been scooped through some Titanic wards that
had happened earlier so Titanic you know the word itself means something huge something
big and who's a Titan a Titan is a a demigod in Greek mythology somebody born of God and
a mortal maybe the children of Zeus and Martel women were the Titans and Hercules for
instance is a Titan they had immense superhuman strength but they were not gods fully too
OK and so he says that this this particular tunnel seemed to be the result of some Titanic
war when great giants and Titans fought so it is at some such time that this this tunnel had
been formed that wars had growing growing you know is the lower part of the abdomen and
here he's talking about the underbellies of the underbelly of the earth means he says that
inside or below the level of the earth you have this tunnel and and so it is to refer to this
underground he uses the word grind OK and so here again you can see this paradigm he
uses escaped scooped groined where you have the that is rhyming but the rest of the world
doesn't really rhyme and so the soldier tells us that he found himself in a tunnel so even in
this tunnel the soldier says he saw many people lying there many bodies lying scattered and
they seem to be asleep yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned so usually in a
battlefield you would find many bodies of people of soldiers who are dead and soldiers who
are wounded soldiers who are unconscious here he seemed to be removed from the
battlefield yet in this tunnel he finds many bodies lying there and he says they there are
encumbered sleepers encumbered sleepers in the sense that the people lying there if they
were sleeping they were not sleeping peacefully they were disturbed even in their sleep
encumbered an encumbrance is a burden a weight that you have to carry and so here he
means to say that these people these bodies lying there they seem to be making groaning
noises so that is why he says they were encumbered sleepers they were not people who
were sleeping in in tranquility or sleeping serenely peacefully but they were encumbered
sleepers who were groaning though they were not awake too fast in thought or death to be
blistered so these people were either lost in thought or they were dead you couldn't really
wake them up to be blistered in the sense you couldn't wake them up you couldn't shake
them up into life they were lost either in thought or they were dead he couldn't say which
and so that's why he says many encumbered scaly sleepers groaned too fast in thought or
death to be blistered and then as I probed them one sprang up and stared with Pete's
recognition and so yeah he being a soldier it was his practice and the soldiers usually after
the battle is over what the soldiers do is they would go to the battlefield and check the
bodies lying there to see and to bring back the bodies of the people belonging to their side
to see whether anybody is lying wounded so it is it is something that they usually do and so
here he probes them he goes to these bodies one by one and he probes them he shakes
them to see whether they are alive and as he moves forward one sprang up so one of those
sleepers suddenly jumps up and stared with piteous recognition and fixed eyes so he stared
at the speaker and there seemed to be a flash of recognition in his eyes with piteous
recognition as if he recognized him and lifting distressful hands and he also lifted his hands
distressful hands in the sense that weak hands wounded hands and as if he was trying to
you know stop him or to defend himself or as if to bless as if he's trying to lift both his hands
and bless this man you couldn't say what exactly he was doing so he jumped up with lifted
hands and he lifted his hands and he smiled at this soldier and he says that's mile was a
special kind of a smile because by his smile I knew that silent hall by his death smile I knew
we stood in hell so he says his smile had a dead feeling is it is difficult to even imagine what a
dead smile would look like but that is the smile that he saw on this man's face and he says
when I saw that smile and again did you notice that he said fixed eyes the man stair was kind
of fixed though a recognition flashed his eyes were fixed and now the dead smile together
this gave the soldier a realization that he was standing in front of a dead man and that he
was now standing in hell the silent hall refers to the place that he was standing the hall and
he was standing in a very broad kind of a place where many bodies were scattered and
sullen because as mentioned earlier it was a dim place a dull place there was not much of
light there and that is why sullen and it's a very unhappy place where many people are lying
dead not lost in thought and that is why he calls it the silent hall and now he suddenly
suddenly realized that they were in hell.

Admissions phase was ingrained yet no blood reached there from the upper ground no guns
thumbed or down the flues made mold so he says that on the face of this man the man who
sprung up from his sleep or from death there were 1000 fears etched on his face that is why
his face was grained with 1000 fears OK and he calls he doesn't call him the soldier or the
man he says the vision because he felt that this was not a person who was alive he sees all
these fears on his face and yet they were standing in safe on safe grounds because as
mentioned in the first line they were far away from the battleground no blood could be seen
anywhere there and the blood in the battlefield would not reach here and the battle was
happening somewhere in the upper ground so that again reinforces the fact that they are
somewhere underground the guns the the thumping sound of the guns could not be heard
and the mourn of the people of the soldiers who were shot or who were wounded it could
not be heard down the flus made modern so here flues are pipes or channels so here he
says that nothing no sound could be heard from the upper battleground so it was a very
silent place there was no bloodshed no guns no moles and so he wonders in spite of being in
such a safe please why is this person or this vision looking so worried why is he so upset so
in order to comfort him he tells him strange friend I said here is no cause to moan so he tells
the other man he tries to comfort him saying strange friend I said here is no cause to mourn
so why are you worried we are safe here and now now the rest of the poem except for the
last few lines is the reply of this the other storage OK and so the other man starts talking in
the response to his statement strange friend here is no cause to mourn and the other man
answers in a dead tone but then what he says is highly sarcastic he says none save the
undone years the hopelessness whatever hope is yours was my life also I went hunting wild
so he says yes of course I know there is nothing to worry here we are safe but except for the
fact that we have lost so many years means we are dead save the undone years means both
of us are dead now so young in our early 20s we are we are done for and then you say there
is no cost to mourn that is true there is no cost at all why should we mourn our life itself has
been lost so there you can see the sarcasm in what he says you know the greatest tragedy is
that they have lost their life itself what more is there to mourn the worst thing has already
happened to them that is why none save the undone years the hopelessness the
hopelessness that he feels of having lost all his dreams all his hopes that is why he continues
the idea and he says whatever hope is yours was my life also into each other they seem to
be people belonging to two different factions one is British and maybe the other is German
but then young men everywhere they have the same dreams the same hopes the same
plans for future and that is why he says whatever hope is yours was my life also you being a
young man like me most definitely have had some hopes about your life I too had the same
it was my life also I went hunting wild after the wildest beauty in the world which lie is not
calm in eyes of braided hair but marks the steady running of the hour and if it grieves grieves
the children rich clear than here so he says that I too like you went hunting wild after the
wildest beauty in the world I was also a seeker of beauty and he says I am not talking about
the physical beauty because that's why he specifically mentions which lies not calm in ice or
braided hair so calm in eyes and braided hair it refers to women so he says that I am not
talking about the beauty of women i'm

Lines 1-8
Line 1

It seemed that out of the battle I escaped

 This sounds like the start of a pretty good day. No one really wants to be trapped
in battle. Looks like our speaker may have found a way out.
 Though it seems like our speaker is in the clear, it might be a good idea to pay
attention to that very word, because, well, things aren't always as they seem. The
word "seem" sort of makes you think of a dream, or some other unreality.
 Because we're so early in the poem, it's good to look out for any clues that might
help orient you as you go along. The fact that the speaker has escaped from
battle is probably a good hint that this poem will have something to do with war.
(As if "Wilfred Owen" on the title card didn't tip you off already.)

Lines 2-3
Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped
Through granites which Titanic wars had groined.
 We know from the first line that the speaker seems to be away from battle. It
looks now like he's fallen down a tunnel. This is a little strange, and maybe not
the beginning of the best day ever.
 Owen describes the tunnel as dull, which is never really a good thing. Have you
ever been stuck talking to someone dull at a party? Or had a dull headache? No
fun.
 He also describes the tunnel as profound. Vocab alert: Profound has two
meanings. One means physically very deep—so that makes sense in this case—
the tunnel could be buried very deeply. The other meaning is very intense or
deep in an emotional sense (that's the one you're likely familiar with). This
definition doesn't really apply yet, but let's keep it in our back pockets in case it
does further into the poem.
 "[L]ong since scooped / Through granites which Titanic wars had groined" is quite
a mouthful, but he's basically saying this tunnel has been carved out of the hard
stone (granite) that huge wars have created. If you're having a tough time
picturing how wars can create tunnels, just remember that in World War I (when
 this poem takes place) there was tons of fighting in trenches—or tunnels—that
the armies dug as protection, and as a sneaky place from which to fire at their
enemies.
 The Titanic wasn't just a movie with Leo DiCaprio at his cutest (but it was that,
too). The Titanic was an actual real live ship that was huge, and sunk (pretty
famously) in 1912, just a few years before Owen wrote this poem. Comparing the
magnitude of the wars to the ship shows the incident was fresh in his mind.

Lines 4-5
Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned,
Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred
 In the tunnel there are people. Groaning and sleeping. The creep factor just went
up a notch.
 Not only are people groaning in their sleep (why are they groaning—from pain?),
but Owen says they're too busy either thinking or uhhh, being dead, to notice him
at all.
 This is looking suspiciously like a Walking Dead episode and not at all like a
welcome alternative to battle. We're officially weirded out.
 You might start to notice a rhyme scheme unfolding, too. Owen is writing in
rhymed couplets, so the last words of the first two lines rhyme.. Well kind of of.
See, Owen uses slant rhyme so the rhymes don't sound all harsh and clangy.
He likes his rhymes subtle. The rhyme scheme works to kind of build tension—
like creepy music in a horror movie. We don't know what's coming next, but the
rhythm these rhymes create ups the feeling of anticipation. You might start to
form a pit in your stomach.

Lines 6-8
Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared
With piteous recognition in fixed eyes,
Lifting distressful hands as if to bless.
 Not sure why on earth this guy would want to probe these miserable groaning
(and possibly dead) people, but, hey, who are we to judge? It's unclear whether
the speaker is actually probing them with something—like poking them with his
hand or a stick—or if Owen means the speaker is probing them with his eyes. It
could be either.
 Okay, so our speaker is poking around and one of them springs up. Um, run for
your life?
 So one of these sleepy and/or dead guys looks at our speaker with what Owen
describes as "piteous recognition." Piteous just means that they make whoever
he's looking at feel bad for him. The recognition part is strange. Maybe this
person knows the speaker from somewhere.
 He's staring at our speaker, looking pretty pathetic, and he's lifting his hands up in
distress—or extreme anxiety, sorrow, and pain—which isn't that surprising
considering the state of these people, but it's a little odd that he's lifting his hands
as if to bless our speaker.
 By now you might have noticed that all these lines are somewhere around the
same length—and most of 'em have about ten syllables. If you're thinking iambic
pentameter, you're not wrong. But get ready for some metrical weirdness,
 because these lines are nowhere near regular. For more on this, check out
"Form and Meter."

Lines 9-21
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Lines 9-10

And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall;

By his dead smile I knew we stood in Hell.
 Looks like things just keep getting worse. Our speaker is walking amongst the
dead in hell. That's got to rank pretty high on the "worst case scenarios" list.
 Notice how Owen drags out the suspense just a tad longer before he flat-out
states that they're in hell? He describes it as a sullen (gloomy and sad) hall first,
then lets it rip in the following line.
 There's an extra creep factor in the fact that this dead guy is staring at him,
apparently recognizing him, and smiling.
 Something to think about: What is our speaker doing wandering around hell with
a bunch of dead dudes? Does he even deserve to be there?

Lines 11-13
With a thousand fears that vision's face was grained;
Yet no blood reached there from the upper ground,
And no guns thumped, or down the flues made moan.
 Line 11 basically just says that this dude is scared. His face looks like it's made
up of "a thousand fears."
 But, notices our speaker, there doesn't really seem anything to be afraid of. For
once, there's no bloodshed, and no sounds of gunshots hammering in their ears.
Like we read in the first line, "it seemed that out of the battle [they'd] escaped."
So what's everybody so freaked out about?

Line 14
"Strange friend," I said. "Here is no cause to mourn."
 Our speaker, having noticed that they're out of war, and that there's no more
bloodshed or gunfire, tries to ease this dead guy's mind.
 It's cool, he says, there's no reason to be so bummed out. Except for, you know,
being dead and all.

Lines 15-18
"None," said the other, "Save the undone years,
The hopelessness. Whatever hope is yours,
Was my life also; I went hunting wild
After the wildest beauty in the world,
  What follows is the dead guy's (or, speaker number 2 as we'll call him from now
on) response.
 He doesn't really agree with our speaker. He's like, "Sure there's nothing to
mourn—oh, except all of the years he never got to live." He's bummed because
he'll never get those years back, and that fills him with a sense of hopelessness
and despair. If he's feeling robbed of years of his life, maybe he was pretty young
when he died. (That makes sense; a lot of the soldiers who fought in World War I
were a mere 18 or 19 years old.)
 Then he brings our speaker into it. He says whatever hopes, dreams, and
aspirations you had for your life, I had, too. He's basically saying, I was just like
you, with my whole life ahead of me, then I was robbed of it. If our speaker was
feeling at all at ease, this guy is sure to be bringing him down at this point.
 He keeps piling it on. He says he lived his life in pursuit of wild beauty, but that
again, he was never able to find it because his life was cut short.

Lines 19-21
Which lies not calm in eyes, or braided hair,
But mocks the steady running of the hour,
And if it grieves, grieves richlier than here.
 The beauty the second speaker looked for in life wasn't really a physical beauty.
It "lies not calm in eyes, or braided hair."
 Maybe it was a deeper beauty—like the beauty you find in art and literature? The
beauty in peace or truth? It's hard to say.
 Either way, he's not finding any of it where he is now. Which is hell, in case you
forgot.
 How could beauty "mock the steady running of the hour"? Well, to mock means to
tease, and "the steady running of the hour" probably has something to do with the
constant passage of time. Maybe that means that beauty isn't something anyone
can fully find in his lifetime. It's just too awesome, and maybe also too fleeting for
any one man to tack down.
 Even if beauty could grieve—and we're not really authorities on the grieving
capabilities of beauty at Shmoop, but take it from this dead guy—it would grieve
more intensely, or "richlier," than it ever could in hell. Which doesn't make a ton of
sense, but from the whole "dull" description Owen gave us early on in the poem
we can guess that nothing can be truly vivid, or thrive, in hell; certainly not
beauty.
 This guy's getting pretty deep, and he's probably a little wacky from hanging out
too long in hell. The important thing to remember is that he's bummed he missed
out on life. He feels like it was cut short.

Lines 22-29
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Lines 22-24
For by my glee might many men have laughed,
And of my weeping something has been left,
Which must die now. I mean the truth untold,
 This second soldier is still going through his laundry list of regrets. He feels that
not only did he miss out, but other people missed out in missing him. His
happiness could have caused others happiness. Laughter is contagious, after all.
 Owen throws in a very subtle twist in lines 23 and 24. The second speaker says
that something has been left "which must die now." We're not completely sure
what that something is, but he goes on to clarify: "I mean the truth untold." So
with this guy's death, so much else has died, too—the pursuit of beauty, the fun
and laughter he could have shared with others, and finally a truth that he never
got to tell before he died. This just gets sadder and sadder.
 What's that truth he never got to tell? Stay tuned…

Line 25
The pity of war, the pity war distilled.
 Drumroll please! The truth the second speaker is talking about is how freaking
terrible war is.
 First he says it's a pity, then he says that, no, it's way worse—war magnifies (or
distills) pity (and sorrow and grieving) to the umpteenth extent.
 It's the absolute worst. In case you weren't getting that idea already.

Lines 26-27
Now men will go content with what we spoiled.
Or, discontent, boil bloody, and be spilled.
 In line 26 he explains that because of their war, future generations will have to
live with what they've destroyed. War tears apart countries—their land, their
economy, and also their morale. People are pretty torn up by war, regardless of
whether they win or lose.
 Then in line 27 he basically says, if they're not content to go on, they're going to
continue to hate each other, and to fight.
 There will be no end to the madness.
 This guy is feeling a heavy dose of remorse and regret, and he's got plenty of
time to stew over it in hell. It's kind of like being grounded. Forever.

Lines 28-29
They will be swift with swiftness of the tigress,
None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress.
 Speaker number two is looking into the crystal ball a bit here. He's predicting
what the soldiers of the future will do—they'll continue to fight skillfully and
dutifully. But considering he thinks war is the most pitiful thing in the world, that's
not necessarily a good thing.
 "None will break ranks," means that no one will disobey or desert. Typically that's
considered a good thing in war. You want everyone on board, working toward the
same task. But here it's a criticism. Speaker number two recognizes that if no one
 ever goes against the grain, war will never come to an end. Everyone will just
keep doing their duty—which is to kill.
 At the end of line 29 Owen writes, "though nations trek from progress" which is a
pretty harsh critique of war. Most of the time, countries go to war because they
think the outcome will be positive. They go to war to make progress for the
nation, not to move in the opposite direction.
 Owen is throwing some serious hate on the topic of war, which is pretty
interesting considering he was a seasoned soldier himself.

Lines 30-39
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Lines 30-31

Courage was mine, and I had mystery;

Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery;
 Speaker number two is looking back at the glory days. At the time, as a soldier,
he felt like he was courageous and wise, and he was totally cool with carrying out
his duty. Good at it, too.
 Now we know it's a different story. He thinks war is a total bust, and now he's
spending eternity in the worst place ever—hell.

Lines 32-33
To miss the march of this retreating world
Into vain citadels that are not walled.
 Again, soldiers in war are moving in the wrong direction—the world is "retreating"
from them. War destroys so much of the world that as they fight, the previous,
real world, or world as they knew it, gets further and further away.
 Vocab alert: vain, in this case, means producing no result, and a citadel is a
fortress that protects a city. In other words, the soldiers are fighting for nothing—it
won't get them anything in the end. And what they thought was their protection, or
fortress, isn't. Nothing can protect them from the damage war does.
 This guy is in full war-bashing mode. He definitely woke up on the wrong side of
the bed. (Is there a right side of the bed in hell, though?)

Lines 34-36
Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot-wheels
I would go up and wash them from sweet wells,
Even with truths that lie too deep for taint.
 "Blood had clogged their chariot-wheels," while a totally awesome and gory
image, isn't literal. What speaker number two is trying to get at here is that, at
some point, fighting takes its toll, and as a soldier, you're left with an
overwhelming amount of "blood on your hands"—or enemy deaths that you have
to live with and find a way to deal with somehow. He's being metaphorical.
 He's saying he's sympathetic to these guys, and if he could he'd wash the blood
from them. Again, not literal. He means he'd wash them of their sins, if he could,
 so they wouldn't carry the burden of all of those deaths. And he'd try to soothe
them with the truth, because the truth is too powerful to be tainted even by the
most horrific of battles.
 There's that truth again. Remember we first read about it in the beginning of
speaker two's speech. Owen is super focused on the importance of beauty and
truth, and it really seems like he feels there is no place for either in war.

Lines 37-39
I would have poured my spirit without stint
But not through wounds; not on the cess of war.
Foreheads of men have bled where no wounds were.
 In line 37 he's saying that he would have given it his all. We can assume he
means that he would have given life (had he had more of it) his all. "Without stint"
just means without restriction. He would have poured all of himself into life.
 In line 38 he modifies that statement: he'd do anything with every ounce of his
being, except fight in war. He refers to war as a "cess" or curse, and it also
makes us think of cesspool or sewer, which is the nastiest of nasty.
 When he says, "Foreheads of men have bled where no wounds were" he means
that soldiers have suffered mental and emotional anguish just as much as
physical pain. And that the mental and emotional anguish doesn't heal easily.
He's proof of that. He's still suffering, and the poor guy's dead.

Lines 40-44
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Line 40

I am the enemy you killed, my friend.

 Hold up. Speaker number one killed speaker number two? Yikes. They must
have been enemies on the battlefield.
 You've got to give Owen props for the cleverness of using "enemy" and "friend" in
the same sentence. Things are clearly different after death. And you've got to
give him points for style, too. Way to hold on to the key information until it'll have
the most impact. Wilfred Owen: dropping truth bombs.
 This explains the "recognition" in his eyes in line 7. If he killed him, why does he
address him as, "my friend"? Well if you were paying attention to anything the guy
was just ranting about for like thirty plus lines, you'd know that he thinks war is a
bunch of bologna. It's the worst thing ever. Maybe he doesn't distinguish men as
enemies or allies anymore, but all fellow men damned to spend the rest of
eternity in hell. In a sick way, they're in this together.

Line 41-42
I knew you in this dark; for so you frowned
Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed.
  These lines give us a little chill. Speaker two recognizes speaker one because
when he was stabbing him to death he was frowning in the same way he was
when he just encountered him today.
 Owen writes that he frowned through the man he was killing, which is really
interesting because it's almost as if he can't see him, or like he's seeing through
him. Because speaker number one saw speaker number two as an enemy and
nothing else, he wasn't able to recognize him as a person, and couldn't truly see
his face. And now that he has to "face" his enemy in death, he sees that they're
so much alike. Owen is getting deep, y'all.

Lines 43-44
I parried; but my hands were loath and cold.
Let us sleep now. . . ."
 Vocab alert: parry means to try to block, and loath means reluctant or unwilling.
 So speaker number two says he tried to block speaker number one from killing
him, but his hands were unwilling—maybe he was tired of fighting and wanted to
die in some way. Or at least to give up trying to survive.
 This image of speaker number two with his hands raised is actually the second
time it's appeared in the poem. The first was when they first meet in hell, "Lifting
distressful hands as if to bless." Owen seems to be getting across that even
though speaker one killed him, speaker two has forgiven him.
 The final line seems like it should be the beginning of peace for these two
soldiers, but we've got to remember that they're in hell. When speaker number
one first arrived on the scene the "sleepers" were all groaning in agony. You get
the sense that even if they sleep, they're still going to suffer. The ellipses at the
end of the final line makes you think of that, too. He's trailing off from his rant, but
it's hard to believe that he's found peace.

It seemed that out of battle I escaped

Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped
Through granites which titanic wars had groined.

Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned,

Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred.
Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared
With piteous recognition in fixed eyes,
Lifting distressful hands, as if to bless.
And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall,—
By his dead smile I knew we stood in Hell.

With a thousand fears that vision's face was grained;

Yet no blood reached there from the upper ground,
And no guns thumped, or down the flues made moan.
“Strange friend,” I said, “here is no cause to mourn.”
“None,” said that other, “save the undone years,
The hopelessness. Whatever hope is yours,
Was my life also; I went hunting wild
After the wildest beauty in the world,
Which lies not calm in eyes, or braided hair,
But mocks the steady running of the hour,
And if it grieves, grieves richlier than here.
For by my glee might many men have laughed,
And of my weeping something had been left,
Which must die now. I mean the truth untold,
The pity of war, the pity war distilled.
Now men will go content with what we spoiled.
Or, discontent, boil bloody, and be spilled.
They will be swift with swiftness of the tigress.
None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress.
Courage was mine, and I had mystery;
Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery:
To miss the march of this retreating world
Into vain citadels that are not walled.
Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot-wheels,
I would go up and wash them from sweet wells,
Even with truths that lie too deep for taint.
I would have poured my spirit without stint
But not through wounds; not on the cess of war.
Foreheads of men have bled where no wounds were.

“I am the enemy you killed, my friend.

I knew you in this dark: for so you frowned
Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed.
I parried; but my hands were loath and cold.
Let us sleep now. . . .”