Tuesday Poem: “Dulce Et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen
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.
.
by Wilfred Owen
1893 – 1918
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Last week I featured AB Negative (The Surgeon’s Poem) by US poet Brian Turner—and quoted Wilfred Owen in my commentary: “My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity.”
So this week it seemed appropriate to feature a poem by Wilfred Owen, in this case one of the more well known, Dulce Et Decorum Est.
Wilfred Owen is also one of the most well known of the World War 1 poets writing in English, and his poetry is characterized by the juxtaposition of compassion with grim realism.
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To read the featured poem on the Tuesday Poem Hub and other great poems from fellow Tuesday poets around the world, click here or on the Quill icon in the sidebar.
Amen to that.
It’s compelling stuff isn’t it, not least because until the final lines it simply records the horror w/o commenting on it. And yet that final comment “makes” the poem, thus giving the lie to those who hold that we should always “show not tell.”
That’s always such a hard poem to read. So striking and visceral. In the lead up to the centennial commemorations for the First World War, I hope we don’t forget things like this poem, to balance the ideas of heroism and glory.
I first read Wilfred Owen when at high school and I was profoundly moved and influenced by his poetry from that time, although as a teen I also found the subject matter overwhelming. I have grown into the latter, but have also found that the poetry itself stands the test of time, for me personally as well as the way it endures in the canon. And I still feel it is one of the most accurate and accessible witnesses to the senseless brutality and profligate waste of human lives that was WW1. One of those lives, of course, was OWen’s himself.
Oh, a classic, for sure! The drowning in the thick green light always sends shivers up my spine – its the blindness of it all, I think. Thank you for sharing, Helen.
Just: ‘yes.’