"A New Heaven" is a sonnet by

Wilfred Owen Wilfred Edward Salter Owen MC (18 March 1893 – 4 November 1918) was an English poet and soldier. He was one of the leading poets of the First World War. His war poetry on the horrors of trenches and gas warfare was much influenced b ...

, written in England before Owen had seen active service in the trenches of France, probably in September 1916. Some MS drafts bear differing dedications (''To — on active service'' or ''To a comrade in Flanders''). The poem was probably written in Milford Camp, Surrey, which was a part of

Witley Camp Witley Military Camp, often simplified to Camp Witley, was a temporary army camp set up on Witley Common, Surrey, England during both the First and Second World Wars. The camp was about southwest of London. Camp Witley was one of three faci ...

. The poem's title echoes a line from

Revelation In religion and theology, revelation is the revealing or disclosing of some form of truth or knowledge through communication with a deity or other supernatural entity or entities. Background Inspiration – such as that bestowed by God on the ...

21:1, "And I saw a new heaven and a new earth". The poem is written from the point of view of a soldier (or soldiers) in France wondering about death; since they have no chance of gaining entry into any mythological afterlife (or even the Christian Paradise), they call on the Channel ferry - rather than that over the Styx - to take them home and find remembrance and wholeness in their mothers' tears. Owen's biographer Dominic Hibberd draws parallels with Owen's 1917 poem "

Anthem for Doomed Youth "Anthem for Doomed Youth" is a poem written in 1917 by Wilfred Owen. It incorporates the theme of the horror of war. Style Like a traditional Petrarchan sonnet, the poem is divided into an octave and sestet. However, its rhyme scheme is neither ...

", finding a Romantic nostalgia in both which was only expunged in the later poems written at

Craiglockhart Craiglockhart (; gd, Creag Longairt) is a suburb in the south west of Edinburgh, Scotland, lying between Colinton to the south, Morningside to the east Merchiston to the north east, and Longstone and Kingsknowe to the west. The Water of Leith ...

and after.

References

External links

* A New Heaven
draft manuscripts and full text
at Oxford Universit
First World War Poetry Digital Archive
{{DEFAULTSORT:New Heaven, A Poetry by Wilfred Owen 1916 poems British poems World War I poems