First World War Poetry Digital Archive

Storm

STORM by WILFRED OWEN His face was charged with beauty as a cloud With glimmering lightning. When it shadowed me, I shook, and was uneasy as a tree That draws the brilliant danger, tremulous, bowed. So must I tempt that face to loose its lightning. Great gods, whose beauty is death, will laugh above, Who made his beauty lovelier than love. I shall be bright with their unearthly brightening. And happier were it if my sap consume; Glorious will shine the opening of my heart; The land shall freshen that was under gloom; What matter if all men cry out and start, And women hide their faces in their shawl, At those hilarious thunders of my fall?

Citation

“Storm,” by Owen, Wilfred (1893-1918). The Estate of Wilfred Owen. The Complete Poems and Fragments of Wilfred Owen edited by Jon Stallworthy first published by Chatto & Windus, 1983. Preliminaries, introductory, editorial matter, manuscripts and fragments omitted. via First World War Poetry Digital Archive, accessed May 1, 2024, http://ww1lit.nsms.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/collections/item/3349.

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