The Muse in Arms

[2][3] Osborn's introduction discusses several aspects of the collection and includes a quote from Pericles when considering the cost of the war against the poetry produced: But the youth we have lost in these dread years has not perished in vain; if "the spring has gone out of the year," as Pericles lamented, yet we are immeasurably the richer for the spirituality they have bequeathed to us, of which the poems in this book are an enduring expression.The book is divided into fourteen thematic sections:[2] At the time of the anthology's publication in November 1917, the death during the war of sixteen of the forty-six authors was marked in the list of authors with an asterisk, and are so-marked in the following list as well.

[2] Selection of photographs of some of the poets and titles of their poems from The Muse in Arms: The poems that mention wartime places, battles, people and events include:[47] The opening lines of 'To the Poet Before Battle' by Ivor Gurney, who would survive the war: Now, youth, the hour of thy dread passion comes; Thy lovely things must all be laid away; And thou, as others, must face the riven day Unstirred by rattle of the rolling drums Or bugles' strident cry.

[...] Lines from 'Better Far to Pass Away' by Richard Molesworth Dennys, who was killed during the war: My day was happy – and perchance The coming night is full of stars.

The Muse in Arms has been described as one of several "important anthologies in the canonization of poetic taste",[58] including work by Siegfried Sassoon and Rupert Brooke.

While other major war poets such as Wilfred Owen and Isaac Rosenberg are absent from the book,[59] the collection has also been noted for its inclusion of poems by "servicemen who perished during wartime and whose literary output was strictly limited".