Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori?

Speaking of that in my previous blog reminded me of one of my favourite poets, Wilfred Owen (1893 - 1918). Quite possibly the most brilliant war poet the world has ever seen and tragically killed near the end of WWI, he wrote with amazing insight and I've never been able to get his works out of my head ever since I studied them first in Year 9.

I think Dulce et Decorum est is probably one of his better-known works, and although not my favourite, I thought I'd post it anyway.

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 gas-shells dropping softly 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
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.

More Wilfred Owen poems can be found here. Anthem for Doomed Youth, Strange Meeting, Futility and SIW still make me cry. Or maybe it's the futility of war and never learning from it that does that...