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.
- Wilfred Owen