Sonnet On Seeing a Piece of our Heavy Artillery Brought into Action

"Sonnet On Seeing a Piece of our Heavy Artillery Brought into Action" is a poem by Wilfred Owen. It deals with the atrocities of World War I.

The poem is among those set in the War Requiem of Benjamin Britten.

Text

Be slowly lifted up, thou long black arm,

Great Gun towering towards Heaven, about to curse;

Sway steep against them, and for years rehearse

Huge imprecations like a blasting charm!

Reach at that Arrogance which needs thy harm,

And beat it down before its sins grow worse.

Spend our resentment, cannon,-yea, disburse

Our gold in shapes of flame, our breaths in storm.

Yet, for men's sakes whom thy vast malison

Must wither innocent of enmity,

Be not withdrawn, dark arm, the spoilure done,

Safe to the bosom of our prosperity.

But when thy spell be cast complete and whole,

May God curse thee, and cut thee from our soul!

Poems by Wilfred Owen

"1914"
"A New Heaven"
"A Terre"
"Anthem for Doomed Youth"
"Apologia Pro Poemate Meo"
"Arms and the Boy"
"As Bronze may be much Beautified"
"Asleep"
"At a Calvary near the Ancre"
"Beauty"
"But I was Looking at the Permanent Stars"
"Conscious"
"Cramped in that Funnelled Hole"
"Disabled"
"Dulce et Decorum est"
"Elegy in April and September"
"Exposure"
"Futility"
"Greater Love"
"Happiness"
"Has Your Soul Sipped?"
"Hospital Barge"
"I Saw His Round Mouth's Crimson"
"Insensibility"
"Inspection"
"Le Christianisme"
"Mental Cases"
"Miners"
"Music"
"S. I. W."
"Schoolmistress"
"Six O'Clock in Princes Street"
"Smile, Smile, Smile"
"Soldier's Dream"
"Sonnet On Seeing a Piece of our Heavy Artillery Brought into Action"
"Spells and Incantations"
"Spring Offensive"
"Strange Meeting"
"The Calls"
"The Chances"
"The Dead-Beat"
"The End"
"The Kind Ghosts"
"The Last Laugh"
"The Letter"
"The Next War"
"The Parable of the Old Man and the Young"
"The Roads Also"
"The Send-off"
"The Sentry"
"The Show"
"The Wrestlers"
"Training"
"Uriconium An Ode"
"Wild with All Regrets"
"With an Identity Disc"

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