Memorial Day poem from Wilfred Owen

[GoneOffShore]

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.

Wilfred Owen
18 March 1893 – 4 November 1918

[JT45242]

1. Funny thing about 9/11/2001 -- it changed English textbooks

If you look at most anthologies in use for HS english classes printed before that date - -this poem is almost always in there as one of the pre-eminent examples of the lost generation of poets who wrote about the horror of WWI. (See also the Death of the Ball turret gunner https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57860/the-death-of-the-ball-turret-gunner by Jarrell)

Then I was teaching science and mentioned that poem -- the students hadn't read it. The english teachers in my school told me that it wasn't in any of the anthologies that they considered for new book adoption in about 2004.

As a country -- we are doomed to commit the same mistakes if we ignore our collective history and great visceral poems like both of these.

[GoneOffShore]

2. All countries teach the old lie; Dulce et Decorum est Pro patria mori.

And that is why every Memorial Day I post the Wilfred Owen poem.

[Treefrog]

3. I have a book called Men Who March Away. It's a collection of poems from WW1.

This is one of my favorites from Siegfried Sassoon:

Base Details

If I were fierce, and bald, and short of breath,
I’d live with scarlet Majors at the Base,
And speed glum heroes up the line to death.
You’d see me with my puffy petulant face,
Guzzling and gulping in the best hotel,
Reading the Roll of Honour. ‘Poor young chap,’
I’d say - ‘I used to know his father well;
Yes, we’ve lost heavily in this last scrap.’
And when the war is done and youth stone dead,
I’d toddle safely home and die - in bed.

4 March 1917

[GoneOffShore]

6. I had forgotten that one. Thank you.

[Hekate]

4. The older I get, the more this poem grabs my heart & brings tears to my eyes

Thank you for bringing it here, this day.

[Treefrog]

5. Kick for Memorial Day.

[Hekate]

7. Another kick for Memorial Day. This poem always drives me back to Archibald MacLeish...

...who lost his brother the Great War.

[Wounded Bear]

8. K & R...for Memorial Day...