September - October, 1917 |
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.
8 October 1917 - March, 1918
6 comments:
And yet, here's to you 13 and Suspect. My thoughts will be of you and many others on this Veteran's Day.
I was student teaching in 1986 and used Owen (among others) to prepare my high school seniors for our one week poet in residence. We read some of his stuff early too. Robert Barth, native Northern Kentuckian, Vietnam veteran, curmudgeon extraordinairre lately, and author of Forced Marching to the Styx. I don't know if you can find any of that online. I have a chapbook version. I highly recommend it. Happy to scan a few if you want them. I found the tone of the WW1 poets most contemporary.
He has one titled Letter to My Infant Son which I prepared them for with Coleridge.
Kentucky has a sundial memorial for its sons lost in Vietnam and the shadow never falls on the MIA. My mother tried to get my brother to see it but he refused to go. Her brother, WW2 vet and former POW, just told her to leave him alone about it. She listened.
they were in our English books. our Pakistani teacher read them and she sucked at life. when i read them out loud to the class my voice cracked, my eyes watered and i was taken back to Iraq. I remember applying a tourniquet to a leg, shooting an Iraqi, pulling people out of trucks...it hurt.
I'm reminded the attitude of a young boy whose goal in life was to be on GI Joe. "When I grow up, I want to die for my country." I'll never forget that. I don't mean to make this political, but I've been thinking a lot about this lately, probably much the same way it has been for centuries: war is just the enactment, by young men, to settle the affairs of grown men who cannot get along. And we know who pays the price...
"war is just the enactment, by young men, to settle the affairs of grown men who cannot get along. And we know who pays the price..."
Sadly, it was ever thus. Will we ever learn?
~P~
You guys are alright. I don't feel like such a loner for awhile. z
My grandfather was in World War I. I wish I had spent more time talking to him about the time he spent as a soldier, but, I was young and unaware of the pain that he suffered. The last paragraph of that poem really hits home and depicts the harsh realities of war and the death and dying that comes with it. I am at a loss to say anything tonight that will measure up. Thank you Jason for all that you have given in service to our country.
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