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.
A college professor once assured me that this poem was actually about the Illiad. I still don’t buy it. Owen told the truth about the ugliness about war, the parts that don’t indlude glory and parades.
I’ve met any number of visitors to Indianapolis who’ve asked about the World War memorial (when I lived downtown I used to run its steps every other day). Europeans would always be astonished to find a huge memorial to the Great War in the middle of the Middle West, and Americans would usually ask, “Why do you have a memorial to World War One?
I believe that 11/11 should be returned as Armistice Day, even at the risk of losing it as a national holiday. It ought to signify what it commemorates: the first modern war, the ghastly, senseless slaughter which was all for nothing at all, a few words on paper. There’s plenty of time for flag-waving on Memorial Day, or name another, and let’s return to an understanding of why there was hope it would end all wars.
The poet Wilfred Owen died one week before the Armistice. His parents were listening to church bells chiming the end of war when they received the telegram.