It seemed that out of battle I escaped <br />Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped <br />Through granites which titanic wars had groined. <br />Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned, <br />Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred. <br />Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared <br />With piteous recognition in fixed eyes, <br />Lifting distressful hands, as if to bless. <br />And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall, - <br />By his dead smile I knew we stood in Hell. <br />With a thousand pains that vision's face was grained; <br />Yet no blood reached there from the upper ground, <br />And no guns thumped, or down the flues made moan. <br />'Strange friend,' I said, 'here is no cause to mourn.' <br />'None,' said that other, 'save the undone years, <br />The hopelessness. Whatever hope is yours, <br />Was my life also; I went hunting wild <br />After the wildest beauty in the world, <br />Which lies not calm in eyes, or braided hair, <br />But mocks the steady running of the hour, <br />And if it grieves, grieves richlier than here. <br />For by my glee might many men have laughed, <br />And of my weeping something had been left, <br />Which must die now. I mean the truth untold, <br />The pity of war, the pity war distilled. <br /><br />-Wilfred Owen, Strange Meeting, 1917
