For Remembrance Day
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 mori1.
–Wilfred Owen
December 13th, 2006 at 1:38 pm
Fitting for Remembrance Day, wish I had read it sooner.
Too bad that accounts like this are swept aside in favor of sanitized alternatives, news images of troops patrolling lazily through blown-out store fronts and houses, with locals rummaging through the burned remains of their lives; or tank statistcs with 3D-animated models that are closer to car commercials than objective reportage, as if we are invited to *buy* the damn things ourselves through a mini infomercial. But never your own dead…
Of course, this could all be dismissed as “whining in support of a more liberal media.”
December 13th, 2006 at 12:38 pm
Fitting for Remembrance Day, wish I had read it sooner.
Too bad that accounts like this are swept aside in favor of sanitized alternatives, news images of troops patrolling lazily through blown-out store fronts and houses, with locals rummaging through the burned remains of their lives; or tank statistcs with 3D-animated models that are closer to car commercials than objective reportage, as if we are invited to *buy* the damn things ourselves through a mini infomercial. But never your own dead…
Of course, this could all be dismissed as “whining in support of a more liberal media.”