LiederNet logo

CONTENTS

×
  • Home | Introduction
  • Composers (20,119)
  • Text Authors (19,527)
  • Go to a Random Text
  • What’s New
  • A Small Tour
  • FAQ & Links
  • Donors
  • DONATE

UTILITIES

  • Search Everything
  • Search by Surname
  • Search by Title or First Line
  • Search by Year
  • Search by Collection

CREDITS

  • Emily Ezust
  • Contributors (1,114)
  • Contact Information
  • Bibliography

  • Copyright Statement
  • Privacy Policy

Follow us on Facebook

by Wilfred Owen (1893 - 1918)

Arms and the boy
Language: English 
Our translations:  FRE
Let the boy try along this bayonet-blade
How cold steel is, and keen with hunger of blood;
Blue with all malice, like a madman's flash;
And thinly drawn with famishing for flesh.

Lend him to stroke these blind, blunt bullet-heads
Which long to muzzle in the hearts of lads.
Or give him cartridges of fine zinc teeth,
Sharp with the sharpness of grief and death.

For his teeth seem for laughing round an apple.
There lurk no claws behind his fingers supple;
And God will grow no talons at his heels,
Nor antlers through the thickness of his curls.

First published in Arts and Letters, Spring 1920

Text Authorship:

  • by Wilfred Owen (1893 - 1918), "Arms and the boy" [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 , "Arms and the boy", 1971 [baritone, flute, double piccolo, clarinet, bass clarinet, trombone, piano, and 3 percussion], from Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori [ sung text not verified ]

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

  • FRE French (Français) (Guy Laffaille) , "Les armes et le garçon", copyright © 2017, (re)printed on this website with kind permission


Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website: 2008-10-18
Line count: 12
Word count: 99

Gentle Reminder

This website began in 1995 as a personal project by Emily Ezust, who has been working on it full-time without a salary since 2008. Our research has never had any government or institutional funding, so if you found the information here useful, please consider making a donation. Your help is greatly appreciated!
–Emily Ezust, Founder

Donate

We use cookies for internal analytics and to earn much-needed advertising revenue. (Did you know you can help support us by turning off ad-blockers?) To learn more, see our Privacy Policy. To learn how to opt out of cookies, please visit this site.

I acknowledge the use of cookies

Contact
Copyright
Privacy

Copyright © 2025 The LiederNet Archive

Site redesign by Shawn Thuris