Wilfred Owen – Dulce et Decorum Est – Lest we forget!

Posted on by Opher

It is remembrance day – the time we stop to remember all those who died or were injured and traumatised by war.

War is terrible.

There has to be better ways.

When I ran my school I used to hold a remembrance service for the whole school and I would read this poem to them. It has huge impact because it describes the reality. It is not sugar-coated.

War is horror. There is nothing gallant about it. It is death and agony.

The poem ends with the line – The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Translated: The old lie – it is good and proper to die for your country.

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,
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 – The Next War

Posted on by Opher

For me this poem, one of Wilfred’s lesser known ones, is all in the last three words.

It’s a game played by the wealthy elite for power and gain. There is nothing noble about it. It is base, corrupt and built on greed and power.

It is about flags, patriotism and possession. What wars have been just wars?

How could they all have been avoided?

For this men, women and children die horrible deaths. They crouch in trenches expecting death – and death comes all around them.

It is a joke.

War’s a joke for me and you,
While we know such dreams are true.
– Siegfried Sassoon

The Next War 

Out there, we’ve walked quite friendly up to Death,-
Sat down and eaten with him, cool and bland,-
Pardoned his spilling mess-tins in our hand.
We’ve sniffed the green thick odour of his breath,-
Our eyes wept, but our courage didn’t writhe.
He’s spat at us with bullets and he’s coughed
Shrapnel. We chorussed when he sang aloft,
We whistled while he shaved us with his scythe.

Oh, Death was never enemy of ours!
We laughed at him, we leagued with him, old chum.
No soldier’s paid to kick against His powers.
We laughed, -knowing that better men would come,
And greater wars: when each proud fighter brags
He wars on Death, for lives; not men, for flags.

Wilfred Owen

Wilfred Owen – Dulce Et Decorum Est

Posted on by Opher

The old lie – it is sweet and proper to die for the fatherland.

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 out 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
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
Every year I used to read this to the school in our Remembrance Service.
The reality of war is horror. There is nothing brave or valiant about it. It is horror.
Remembrance is about remembering the poor victims of war – the dead, the maimed and the mentally shattered.  We remember so that we can find better ways of dealing with things. We remember so that we do not have to keep doing it again and again.
We are not very good at remembering.

Anthem for Doomed Youth – Wilfred Owen

Posted on by Opher

I was not familiar with Wilfred Owen and his glorious poetry until well after I’d left school. We never studied him – more’s the pity.

England’s best poet? Well maybe. Certainly nobody else was a better war poet.

He describes all the patriotic idealism of the young men that set off for that distant front full of valiant ideas of glory, the waves of the tearful young girls, leaving behind the green fields of England.

But there was no glory, no courageous fight – just the senseless death and anonymous end in the sucking mud and the explosions of shells.

Anthem for Doomed Youth

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
      — Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
      Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
      Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,—
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
      And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all?
      Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
      The pallor of girls’ brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

Wilfred Owen – Dulce et Decorum Est

Posted on by Opher

Wilfred Owen is one of my favourite poets. He lived through the terrors of the 1st World War and was killed right at the end. He saw terrible things and suffered post traumatic stress. He also wrote the most moving poems about the reality and horrors of war. Nobody has done it better. I am always moved by graphic depictions. They are real. He captures it.

He went to war full of ideals of chivalry, bravery and idealism. He saw the slaughter and reality and realised it was all a lie – one big lie. There is nothing noble or valiant about dying for someone else’s ideas of what is right. War is about power

This poem captures the unglamorous reality of the weariness, fear, terror and disgusting degradation and dehumanisation of war.

When I ran the Remembrance Service at school this is the poem I read. There were some who said it was too graphic. How can war be talked about in kind words?

Lest we forget.

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,
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.
Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
It is sweet and just to die for one’s country.