dulce et decorum est!!!

[lolacola]

it is good and sweet plus the last line to die for your country,,,,
this is one of the most powerful poems i have ever read by wilfred owen and i love it i also love william blake but thats for a different discussion let me know what you think of this one if you have read it...:thumbs_up

[wessexgirl]

This is one of my favourite poems of all time. It really stirs up emotions, and like a lot of WW1 poetry, it makes me cry. It makes me angry too, thinking of the waste of life, a whole lost generation. But unlike Sasoon, with his biting, angry, acerbicly witty poems, Owen's are beautiful and elegiac. I find it so sad that he went back to the front right at the end of the war and got killed, gaining a posthumous medal for bravery. Although both men were friends and were writing about their experiences, their take on it was so different, with Sasoon throwing away his medal in protest. But this poem has to be one of the greatest of all time.


DULCE ET DECORUM EST

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.

8 October 1917 - March, 1918

DULCE ET DECORUM EST - the first words of a Latin saying (taken from an ode by Horace). The words were widely understood and often quoted at the start of the First World War. They mean "It is sweet and right." The full saying ends the poem: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori - it is sweet and right to die for your country. In other words, it is a wonderful and great honour to fight and die for your country

I thought I'd post the poem for those who may not know it.

[Chester]

Beautiful. Thank you for posting this, wessexgirl. It had been a long time since I'd read it.

And, of course, one can't think about WWI poetry without remembering this one:

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

--Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army