he attained a clear vision of what he needed to say, and these poems
survive him as his true and splendid testament.

Wilfred Owen was born at Oswestry on 18th March 1893. He was educated
at the Birkenhead Institute, and matriculated at London University in 1910.
In 1913 he obtained a private tutorship near Bordeaux,
where he remained until 1915. During this period he became acquainted
with the eminent French poet, Laurent Tailhade, to whom he showed
his early verses, and from whom he received considerable encouragement.
In 1915, in spite of delicate health, he joined the Artists' Rifles O.T.C.,
was gazetted to the Manchester Regiment, and served with their 2nd Battalion
in France from December 1916 to June 1917, when he was invalided home.
Fourteen months later he returned to the Western Front and served
with the same Battalion, ultimately commanding a Company.

He was awarded the Military Cross for gallantry while taking part
in some heavy fighting on 1st October. He was killed on 4th November 1918,
while endeavouring to get his men across the Sambre Canal.

A month before his death he wrote to his mother: "My nerves are
in perfect order. I came out again in order to help these boys;
directly, by leading them as well as an officer can;
indirectly, by watching their sufferings that I may speak of them
as well as a pleader can." Let his own words be his epitaph: --

"Courage was mine, and I had mystery;
Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery."

Siegfried Sassoon.