...a complicated set of forces combined to release [Owen] from the spirit of his juvenilia. When reasoning about our creativity, we cannot assume that causality is going to behave in thew ay causality normally behaves. There must be such a thing as causality, we assume; but we cannot expect to understand its workings. In the writing of poetry we may say that the thing we predict will not happen. If we can predict it, it is not poetry. We have to surprise ourselves. We have to outpace our colder calculations. |
To-- from The Collected Poems (1963):
Three rompers run together hand in hand.
The middle boy stops short, the others hurtle:
What bumps, what shrieks, what laughter turning turtle.
Love, racing between us two, has planned
A sudden mischief: shortly he will stand
And we shall shock. We cannot help but fall;
What matter? Why, it will not hurt at all,
Our youth is supple, and the world is sand.
Better our lips should bruise our eyes, than He,
Rude Love, outrun our breath; you pant, and I,
I cannot run much farther; mind that we
Both laugh with love; and having tumbled, try
To go forever children, hand in hand.
The sea is rising... and the world is sand.
More from The Wilfred Owen Multimedia Digital Archive.
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