|
Arms and the Boy
Let
the boy try along this bayonet-blade
How
cold steel is, and keen with hunger of blood;
Blue
with all malice, like a madman’s flash;
And
thinly drawn with famishing for flesh.
Lend
him to stroke these blind, blunt bullet-leads
Which
long to nuzzle in the hearts of lads,
Or
give him cartridges of fine zinc teeth,
Sharp
with the sharpness of grief and death.
For
his teeth seem for laughing round an apple.
There
lurk no claws behind his fingers supple;
And
God will grow no talons at his heels,
Nor
antlers through the thickness of his curls.
Wilfred
Owen
|