Mermaid on the breakwater

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 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.

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Mermaid on the breakwater

A personal favourite of mine by a poet that I have come to respect greatly.

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Gabriel Gray

gas gas, quick boys! I recited part of this poem on governors day at my old school.

The film about wilfred owen and another ww1 poet was incredible, they were both at a hospital for war casulties, can't remember the other ones name, good movie either way.

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Mermaid on the breakwater

Siegfried Sassoon was the other poet, the film was adapted from the book called Regeneration. They were in a home for those suffering from mental traumas induced by the war. Of course, neither were mentally ill, they were just seeing the war for what it really was, especially so in Sassoon's case - Owen's friend and teacher, in many ways.

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Gabriel Gray

Thats the one, watched that film in my last English A-level class - was a good lesson.

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Mike C

One of my all-time favourites. I had to deconstruct this poem down to the nth degree many years ago, and the more you know about the historical context the better it gets.

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strangedaze

Agreed. This and Hardy's "Hap" were two poems I milked in my 20th century British and Irish Lit class.

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Whitman's_Shadow

A fantastic poem! Simply put, it was the one that started it all for me....

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sam_kempton

It is honourable to die for ones country. or is it.
This is, in my eyes, the best piece of published verse ever.

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VigorousMastication

I always preferred Anthem for Doomed Youth to this one, but it's an amazing piece of poetry nevertheless.

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Jimothy Onion Thief

This is one of the greatest poems ever written.
I came across it when I was 14. It was one of the few good things I got out of english lessons that year. After reading it I think I really started to grow up.

OddGodHMK

When I was 16 we had an English workshop and got put into groups to enact this. My group won. It's a good poem.

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OddGodHMK

When I was 16 we had an English workshop and got put into groups to enact this. My group won. It's a good poem.

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Wafti

The poem is undeniably brilliant.

An interesting link my English teacher gave me many years ago was to Jessie Pope's; 'Who's for the game?', the propaganda which Dulce Et Decorum Est seems almost in reponse to.

"Who’s for the game, the biggest that’s played,
The red crashing game of a fight?
Who’ll grip and tackle the job unafraid?
And who thinks he’d rather sit tight?

Who’ll toe the line for the signal to ‘Go!’?
Who’ll give his country a hand?
Who wants a turn to himself in the show?
And who wants a seat in the stand?

Who knows it won’t be a picnic—not much—
Yet eagerly shoulders a gun?
Who would much rather come back with a crutch
Than lie low and be out of the fun?"

Come along, lads— but you’ll come on all right—
For there’s only one course to pursue,
Your country is up to her neck in a fight,
And she’s looking and calling for you."


It's rather desgusting to read now, but that's the crap that was around at the time.

Cornish Maid

I was made to study this one back in school too. I resented it back then because it was pushed on us but I love it now.

Owen is one of my favourite poets these days too. He really knew how to grab the readers attention and had a marvelous way of describing things that we may not have otherwise known about.

Have you ever heard the song by the Damned called Dulce Decorum? That's a cracker too!

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