My head hangs weighed with snow

Yesterday's blip led me to look out the book pictured here - a 1965 collection of First World War poems.

This Wilfred Owen poem is near the back of the volume ...

... one of the most powerful assertions on the finality of death, that I know:


The End

After the blast of lightning from the east,
The flourish of loud clouds, the Chariot throne,
After the drums of time have rolled and ceased
And from the bronze west long retreat is blown,

Shall Life renew these bodies? Of a truth
All death will he annul, all tears assuage?
Or fill these void veins full again with youth
And wash with an immortal water age?

When I do ask white Age, he saith not so, -
"My head hangs weighed with snow."
And when I hearken to the Earth she saith
"My fiery heart sinks aching. It is death.
Mine ancient scars shall not be glorified
Nor my titanic tears the seas be dried."

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Wilfred Owen (1893 – 1918)

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