Arms and the Boy Arms and the Boy "Arms and the Boy" is a poem by Wilfred Owen. Like Owen's other famous poems, it deals with the atrocities of World War I; in it, he portrays the loss of innocence of a child in the midst of war. Thousands like the boy are drawn into the battlefield, to the tormenting visitations of war. <poem>"Let the boy try along this bayonet-blade How cold steel is, and keen with hunger of blood"</poem> It seems a wonder that a boy familiar with sticks and stones holds bayonets in the same hands and learns the coldness of death.
William Mercer (poet) an inordinate self-conceit' (DNB). But his conceit did at least ensure that enough information survived to reconstruct the outline of his life." Mercer has been mistakenly credited by some with writing "The Moderate Cavalier, or, The Soldier's Description of Ireland" which was published in 1675, but the William Mercer who wrote it had served as a Royalist in the English Civil War. William Mercer (poet) William Mercer (born circa 1605, died in or after 1675), was a Scottish poet and army officer. At fifteen he ran away from school to become a soldier and fought in the 30 Years War.