Futility | Move him into the sun

by Wilfred Owen (1893 - 1918)

Move him into the sun

Language: English

Our translations: FRE SPA

Move him into the sun -
Gently its touch awoke him once,
At home, whispering of fields unsown.
Always it woke him, even in France,
Until this morning, and this snow.
If anything might rouse him now
The kind old sun will know. 

Think how it wakes the seed -
Woke, once, the clays of a cold star.
Are limbs, so dear-achieved, are sides,
Full-nerved - still warm - too hard to stir?
Was it for this the clay grew tall?
- O what made fatuous sunbeams toil
To break [earth's]¹ sleep at all?

Available sung texts: ← What is this?

• B. Rands

About the headline (FAQ)

View original text (without footnotes)

First published in Nation, 1918. In some editions, in stanza 1 line 3, "unsown" is "half-sown"

¹ Rands: "the earth's"

Text Authorship:

by Wilfred Owen (1893 - 1918), "Futility", first published 1918 [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

by John E. Cousins , "Futility", 1971 [ baritone, flute, double piccolo, clarinet, bass clarinet, trombone, piano, and 3 percussion ], from Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori [sung text not yet checked]
by Elaine Hugh-Jones (b. 1927), "Futility" [ tenor or baritone and piano or orchestra ], from Songs of War, no. 1 [sung text not yet checked]
by H. Emerson Myers (b. 1910), "In Memoriam" [sung text not yet checked]
by Bernard Rands (b. 1934), "Futility", from Canti del sole, no. 8 [sung text checked 1 time]
by Jason Rico (b. 1978), "Futility" [ voice, piano ] [sung text checked 1 time]
by Hugo Weisgall (1912 - 1997), "Futility", 1944-6, published 1953, rev. 1965 [ baritone and piano ], from Soldier Songs for Baritone, no. 7 [sung text not yet checked]

The text above (or a part of it) is used in the following settings:

by (Edward) Benjamin Britten (1913 - 1976), "Dies irae", op. 66 no. 2, published 1961 [ soprano, tenor, baritone, satb chorus, boys' chorus, orchestra, chamber orchestra, organ ], from War Requiem, no. 2
- View the full text. [sung text not yet checked]

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 14
Word count: 90