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1 Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
2 Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
3 Till on the haunting flares we turned out backs,
4 And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
5 Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
6 But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind;
7 Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
8 Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.
9 Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!--An ecstasy of fumbling
10 Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
11 But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
12 And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime.--
13 Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
14 As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
15 In all my dreams before my helpless sight
16 He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
17 If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
18 Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
19 And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
20 His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin,
21 If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
22 Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs
23 Bitter as the cud
24 Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
25 My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
26 To children ardent for some desperate glory,
27 The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
28 Pro patria mori.
Wilfred Owen
Read poems about / on: green, sick, children, friend, fire, lost, sea, light, child, dream
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Michelle Willis (7/16/2008 6:04:00 PM)
An amazing poem which conveys the horror of the personal experience of war for soldiers, and dispels any romantic notions of the glory of it. |
Michael Pruchnicki (7/16/2008 4:43:00 PM)
A magnificent poem by a man who knew what he wrote about, and despite the likes of Alexis and Archie, who never shouldered a weapon in defense of their homeland, Wilfred Owens suffered the consequences of men who came forward in a time of peril to stand and fight against a foe who threatened the very existence of their nation! All for what, Archie? So you can write along with Alexis about the pointlessness of war and the sacrifice of those men who stand ready at the most inconvenient of times to fight and die so you can expound about the cost of war!
Sit in your classrooms safe and far removed from the dangers that lie in the world outside the university and its domain! |
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