Futility
Move
him into the sun—
Gently
its touch awoke him once,
At
home, whispering of fields unsown.
Always
it woke him, even in France,
Until
this morning and this snow.
If
anything might rouse him now
The
kind old sun will know.
Think
how it wakes the seeds,—
Woke,
once, the clays of a cold star.
Are
limbs, so dear-achieved, are sides,
Full-nerved—still
warm—too hard to stir?
Was
it for this the clay grew tall?
—O
what made fatuous sunbeams toil
To
break earth’s sleep at all?
Wilfred
Owen
|