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.
Thomas Henry Smith (poet) Thomas Henry Smith (poet) Thomas Henry Smith (22 November 1824 – 23 September 1907) of Auckland was an English-born New Zealand Native Land Court Judge and poet. He is best known for the Māori language translation of "God Defend New Zealand", one of the two national anthems of New Zealand, which he wrote at the request of Governor George Edward Grey. Smith was born at Stroud, Gloucestershire, England. After his formal education he worked at a Land Surveying and Architecture office in Romford, Essex. In 1842, he went to New Zealand after being offered a cadetship by the New Zealand