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 commemorate 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
“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)
“August, 1914” by Vera
Mary Brittain
“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)
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
“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.
“August 1914” by Isaac
Rosenberg
“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
“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
“To Any Dead Officer”
by Siegfried Sassoon
“Photographs” by Ivor
Gurney
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
“Lettres d'un Soldat” by Wallace Stevens (published
in Poetry)
“Ypres” by Laurence
Binyon
“Epitaph on My Days in Hospital” by Vera Mary Brittain
“Roundel” by Vera Mary
Brittain
“War Mothers” by
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
“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)
“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)
“Soldier-Poet” by Hervey Allen
(1921)
“For a War Memorial” by G.K. Chesterton (1921)
“Festubert, 1916” by
Edmund Blunden (1921)
“Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries” 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)
Read more poets who served or volunteered in WWI
Browse more War Poems
AUDIO
Poet's Choice: Of Love and War: D.A. Powell reads poems from Rupert Brooke and Gwendolyn Brooks.
Anything But Sweet: Wilfred Owen's “Dulce et Decorum Est” and modern warfare.
ARTICLES
“100 Years of Poetry: The Magazine and War”: A historical look at the role of poetry in wartime.
“How Should We Write About War and Trauma?”: Tom Sleigh Looks to David Jones
“Now online: Siegfried Sassoon’s War Diaries”
ONLINE WWI RESOURCES
PBS: The Great War and the Shaping of the 20th Century
Oxford University: The First World War Poetry Digital Archive
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