How the little Belgians could stop the German Empire (Part III)

I would like to end with ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’, a poem about World War I written by Wilfred Owen. It is a less know poem that talks about one of the greatest horror of the First World War: a gas attack. It describes the death of one of his fellow soldiers that wasn’t able to put his gas mask on. He further described the effect of the chlorine gas on this soldier. He hoped that with this poem the people, back in England would realize that war is cruel, futile and hard. That people, who have survived the horror can never go back to their home without the thought of this horror. In the last paragraph Owen tells about “the old lie”. He refers to a Roman poem written by Horace. Horace glorified dying for your country whereas Owen told the people that if you would see the horror of the war you would never ever tell that is a sweet honor to die for one’s country. Owen died on November the fourth in 1918 during an action at the Sambre-Oise channel. His mother received message of his death on the 11^th of November when the church bells were ringing to celebrate the end of the war. He is buried in Ors.

Wilfred Owen

Dulce et Decorum Est

BY WILFRED OWEN

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 gas-shells dropping softly 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.

END OF THE DERNIER CHAPITRE