The Poetry of World War I

Roughly 10 million soldiers lost their lives in World War I, along with seven million civilians. The horror of the war and its aftermath altered the world for decades, and poets responded to the brutalities and losses in new ways. Just months before his death in 1918, English poet Wilfred Owen famously wrote, “This book is not about heroes. English Poetry is not yet fit to speak of them. Nor is it about deeds, or lands, nor anything about glory, honour, might, majesty, dominion, or power, except War. Above all I am not concerned with Poetry. My subject is War, and the pity of War.”

To mark the WWI centenary, we’ve put together a sampling of poems written in English by both soldiers and civilians, chosen from our archive of over 250 poems from WWI. We’ve also compiled a sampler showcasing the poets who served and volunteered in World War I .

While many of these poems do not address a particular war event, we’ve listed them by year, along with a selection of historical markers, to contextualize the poems historically. You may notice that more poems in 1914 and 1915 extoll the old virtues of honor, duty, heroism, and glory, while many later poems after 1915 approach these lofty abstractions with far greater skepticism and moral subtlety, through realism and bitter irony. Though horrific depictions of battle in poetry date back to Homer’s Iliad, the later poems of WWI mark a substantial shift in how we view war and sacrifice.

1914
Archduke Ferdinand assassinated. Outbreak of war in July/August. Germany invades Belgium. First Battle of the Marne, First Battle of Ypres. United States remains neutral. Trench warfare begins. The Siege of Antwerp. The Christmas truce.

“Channel Firing” by Thomas Hardy
“On Receiving News of the War” by Isaac Rosenberg
“Peace” by Rupert Brooke (published in Poetry)
“The Soldier” by Rupert Brooke (published in Poetry)
“The Dead” by Rupert Brooke
“Joining the Colours” by Katherine Tynan
“Men Who March Away” by Thomas Hardy
“War Girls” by Jessie Pope
“On Heaven” by Ford Madox Ford (published in Poetry)
“To Germany” by Charles Sorley
“For the Fallen” by Laurence Binyon
“Phases” by Wallace Stevens (published in Poetry)
“Iron” by Carl Sandburg (published in Poetry)
“The Bombardment” by Amy Lowell (published in Poetry)
“War Yawp” by Richard Aldington (published in Poetry)
“Fallen” by Alice Corbin Henderson (published in Poetry)
“August 1914” by Mary Wedderburn Cannan
“August 1914” by Isaac Rosenberg
“August, 1914” by Vera Mary Brittain

1915
Germans sink RMS Lusitania. The Dardenelles campaign. Battle of Gallipoli. Second Battle of Ypres. First use of poison gas.

“In Flanders Fields” by John McCrae
“Absolution” by Siegfried Sassoon
“Home” by Edward Thomas
“Champagne, 1914-15” by Alan Seeger
“Belgium” by Edith Wharton
“Before Marching and After” by Thomas Hardy
“In Memoriam (Easter, 1915)” by Edward Thomas
“The Owl” by Edward Thomas
“A Lament” by Katherine Tynan
“The Spring in War-Time” by Sara Teasdale
“Into Battle” by Julian Grenfell
“On Being Asked for a War Poem” by William Butler Yeats
“Rouen” by Mary Wedderburn Cannan
“Marching” by Isaac Rosenberg (published in Poetry)
“Such, Such is Death” by Charles Sorley
“The Falling Leaves” by Margaret Postgate Cole
“When You See Millions of the Mouthless Dead” by Charles Sorley
“This is No Case of Petty Right or Wrong” by Edward Thomas

1916
Battle of Verdun, Battle of the Somme. President Wilson re-elected with campaign slogan, “He kept us out of the war.” Rasputin is murdered.

“Rain” by Edward Thomas
“Break of Day in the Trenches” by Isaac Rosenberg (published in Poetry)
“The Troop Ship” by Isaac Rosenberg
“The Kiss” by Siegfried Sassoon
“The Poet as Hero” by Siegfried Sassoon
“As the Team’s Head Brass” by Edward Thomas
“Sonnet 9: On Returning to the Front after Leave” by Alan Seeger
“In Time of ‘The Breaking of Nations’” by Thomas Hardy
“Easter, 1916” by William Butler Yeats
“The Trumpet” by Edward Thomas
“The Messages” by Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
“The Death Bed” by Siegfried Sassoon
“Lights Out” by Edward Thomas
“The Night Patrol” by Arthur Graeme West
“The War Films” by Henry Newbolt
“The Twins” by Robert Service
“Ode in Memory of the American Volunteers Fallen for France” by Alan Seeger
“At the Movies” by Florence Ripley Mastin

1917
Germans issue Zimmerman Telegram to Mexico, United States declares war on Germany, draft begins. U.S. troops land in France. Third Battle of Ypres. Bolshevik uprising in Russia, led by Lenin, headed by Trotsky.

“Dulce et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen
“I Have a Rendezvous with Death” by Alan Seeger
“Blighters” by Siegfried Sassoon
“Two Fusiliers” by Robert Graves
“Anthem for Doomed Youth” by Wilfred Owen
“Returning, We Hear the Larks” by Isaac Rosenberg
“The Dead Kings” by Francis Ledwidge
“Servitude” by Ivor Gurney
“from Battle of the Somme: The Song of the Mud” by Mary Borden
“Dead Man’s Dump” by Isaac Rosenberg
“Counter-Attack” by Siegfried Sassoon
“Sergeant-Major Money” by Robert Graves
“The Work” by Gertrude Stein
“To His Love” by Ivor Gurney
“After the War” by Mary Wedderburn Cannan
“To Any Dead Officer” by Siegfried Sassoon
“Photographs” by Ivor Gurney
“Breakfast” by Wilfrid Wilson Gibson

1918
U.S. President Wilson issues Fourteen Points to peace. Germany launches Spring Offensive, bombs Paris. United States launches attacks at Belleau Wood and Argonne Forest. Bolsheviks murder Tsar Nicholas II and Romanov family. Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicates, Germany signs armistice on November 11. Paris Peace Conference.

“Strange Meeting” by Wilfred Owen
“Futility” by Wilfred Owen
“Attack” by Siegfried Sassoon
“The Veteran” by Margaret Postgate Cole (published in Poetry)
“Repression of War Experience” by Siegfried Sassoon
“Grass” by Carl Sandburg
“Dawn on the Somme” by Robert Nichols
“God! How I hate you, you young cheerful men” by Arthur Graeme West
“Lettres d'un Soldat” by Wallace Stevens (published in Poetry)
“Ypres” by Laurence Binyon
“Spring Offensive” by Wilfred Owen
“Epitaph On My Days in Hospital” by Vera Mary Brittain
“Roundel” by Vera Mary Brittain
“War Mothers” by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
“Glory of Women” by Sigfried Sassoon
“Smile, Smile, Smile” by Wilfred Owen
“S. I. W.” by Wilfred Owen
“And There Was a Great Calm” by Thomas Hardy

1919 and After
Armies demobilize, return home. Peace Treaty of Versailles ratified by Germany; U.S. Senate votes to reject treaty and refuses to join League of Nations. Proposal and constitution for League of Nations. The Cenotaph unveiled in London. Treaty of Sevres in 1920 ends war on Eastern Front.

“January 1919” by Christopher Middleton (1919)
“Everyone Sang” by Siegfried Sassoon (1919)
“The Cenotaph” by Charlotte Mew (1919)
“First Time In” by Ivor Gurney (1919)
“from Epitaphs of the War, 1914-18” by Rudyard Kipling (1919)
“Gethsemane” by Rudyard Kipling (1919)
“Hugh Selwyn Mauberley (Part I)” by Ezra Pound (1920)
“A.E.F.” by Carl Sandburg (1920)
“To E.T.” by Robert Frost (1920)
“In Memory of George Calderon” by Laurence Binyon (1920)
“War and Peace” by Edgell Rickword (1921)
“Trench Poets” by Edgell Rickword (1921)
“Soldier-Poet” by Hervey Allen (1921)
“For a War Memorial” by G.K. Chesterton (1921)
“Festubert, 1916” by Edmund Blunden (1921)
“Elegy in a Country Churchyard” by G.K. Chesterton (1922)
“Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries” by A.E. Housman (1922)
“Soldier from the wars returning” by A.E. Housman (1922)
“I Saw England — July Night” by Ivor Gurney (1922)
“Champs d’Honneur” by Ernest Hemingway (1923) (published in Poetry)
“Laventie” by Ivor Gurney (1925)
“A War Bride” by Jessie St. John (1928) (published in Poetry)