510. Disabled by Wilfred Owen
b"W Owen read by Classic Poetry Aloud:\\nhttp://www.classicpoetryaloud.com/\\n\\nGiving voice to the poetry of the past.\\n\\n---------------------------------------\\n\\nDisabled\\nby Wilfred Owen (1893 \\u2013 1918)\\n\\nHe sat in a wheeled chair, waiting for dark,\\nAnd shivered in his ghastly suit of grey,\\nLegless, sewn short at elbow. Through the park\\nVoices of boys rang saddening like a hymn,\\nVoices of play and pleasure after day,\\nTill gathering sleep had mothered them from him.\\n\\nAbout this time Town used to swing so gay\\nWhen glow-lamps budded in the light-blue trees\\nAnd girls glanced lovelier as the air grew dim,\\n\\u2014 In the old times, before he threw away his knees.\\nNow he will never feel again how slim\\nGirls' waists are, or how warm their subtle hands,\\nAll of them touch him like some queer disease.\\n\\nThere was an artist silly for his face,\\nFor it was younger than his youth, last year.\\nNow he is old; his back will never brace;\\nHe's lost his colour very far from here,\\nPoured it down shell-holes till the veins ran dry,\\nAnd half his lifetime lapsed in the hot race,\\nAnd leap of purple spurted from his thigh.\\nOne time he liked a bloodsmear down his leg,\\nAfter the matches carried shoulder-high.\\nIt was after football, when he'd drunk a peg,\\nHe thought he'd better join. He wonders why . . .\\nSomeone had said he'd look a god in kilts.\\n\\nThat's why; and maybe, too, to please his Meg,\\nAye, that was it, to please the giddy jilts,\\nHe asked to join. He didn't have to beg;\\nSmiling they wrote his lie; aged nineteen years.\\nGermans he scarcely thought of; and no fears\\nOf Fear came yet. He thought of jewelled hilts\\nFor daggers in plaid socks; of smart salutes;\\nAnd care of arms; and leave; and pay arrears;\\nEsprit de corps; and hints for young recruits.\\nAnd soon, he was drafted out with drums and cheers.\\n\\nSome cheered him home, but not as crowds cheer Goal.\\nOnly a solemn man who brought him fruits\\nThanked him; and then inquired about his soul.\\nNow, he will spend a few sick years in Institutes,\\nAnd do what things the rules consider wise,\\nAnd take whatever pity they may dole.\\nTo-night he noticed how the women's eyes\\nPassed from him to the strong men that were whole.\\nHow cold and late it is! Why don't they come\\nAnd put him into bed? Why don't they come?\\n\\nFirst aired: 8 November 2009\\n\\nFor hundreds more poetry readings, visit the Classic Poetry Aloud index.\\n\\nReading \\xa9 Classic Poetry Aloud 2009"