The Last Laugh

By Wilfred Owen 1893–1918 Wilfred Owen

‘O Jesus Christ! I’m hit,’ he said; and died. 

Whether he vainly cursed, or prayed indeed,

The Bullets chirped—In vain! vain! vain! 

Machine-guns chuckled,—Tut-tut! Tut-tut! 

And the Big Gun guffawed.

Another sighed,—‘O Mother, mother! Dad!’

Then smiled, at nothing, childlike, being dead. 

And the lofty Shrapnel-cloud 

Leisurely gestured,—Fool! 

And the falling splinters tittered.

‘My Love!’ one moaned. Love-languid seemed his mood, 

Till, slowly lowered, his whole face kissed the mud. 

And the Bayonets’ long teeth grinned;

Rabbles of Shells hooted and groaned;

And the Gas hissed.

Source: The Collected Poems of Wilfred Owen (New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1965)

Biography

Wilfred Owen, who wrote some of the best British poetry on World War I, composed nearly all of his poems in slightly over a year, from August 1917 to September 1918. In November 1918 he was killed in action at the age of twenty-five, one week before the Armistice. Only five poems were published in his lifetime—three in the Nation and two that appeared anonymously in the Hydra, a journal he edited in 1917 when he was a patient at . . .

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