This book is not about heroes. English Poetry is not yet fit to speak <br />of them. Nor is it about deeds or lands, nor anything about glory, honour, <br />dominion or power, <br />except War. <br />Above all, this book is not concerned with Poetry. <br />The subject of it is War, and the pity of War. <br />The Poetry is in the pity. <br />Yet these elegies are not to this generation, <br />This is in no sense consolatory. <br /> <br />They may be to the next. <br />All the poet can do to-day is to warn. <br />That is why the true Poets must be truthful. <br />If I thought the letter of this book would last, <br />I might have used proper names; but if the spirit of it survives Prussia, -- <br />my ambition and those names will be content; for they will have <br />achieved themselves fresher fields than Flanders.<br /><br />Wilfred Owen<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/preface/
