(no subject)

[labellementeuse]

ANZAC day. Lest we forget.

Dulce Et Decorum Est

War's a joke for me and you
While we know such dreams are true.
-- Siegfried Sassoon

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 disappointed shells 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 floundering 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

"They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old;
age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the mornign
We shall remember them."
- from For the Fallen, by Laurence Binyon.

Comments

[kitsunerei88]

oh, i always liked this poem. . .

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

me, too. :)

[bad-mushroom.livejournal.com]

Oh. The Wilfred Owen poem...we read that in history class recently. Gah. The gasses are always what scare me most about the horrors of trench warfare. Yuck. But regardless, it's a beautiful poem.

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

Oh, god, I know. And that particular stanza does it really well- read it aloud, it's incredibly rich in aspirants (ss and ff and that kind of thing) it's just brilliant. Actually it's a really good poem to read aloud generally. *sigh* And so awful.

[bad-mushroom.livejournal.com]

I think that what makes a great poem is that element of "READ ME ALOUD" that some poems have; perhaps that's what makes Shakespeare so great.

[deinacrida.livejournal.com]

5th form English... fuck yeah!
I do not not enjoy Wilfred Owen.

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

Dude, I know. I loved that syllabus, though. *hearts Owen & Sassoon*

[claystarling.livejournal.com]

I loved the Wilfred Owen one. I wrote a few essays about it in...erm...tenth grade.

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I did it in 6th form (your 11th grade)- war poetry unit- it was an oincredibly rewarding unit and brilliantly easy to write on!

[mandor700.livejournal.com]

Idid that poem in my 5th form external, and then again in my 6th coz our teacher was stupid so I did it myself, got Merrits two years running lol