Dulce Et Decorum Est Pro Patria Mori

[Guest anorthosite]

It may have been Horace that said that particular lie, but Gordon Brown agrees. After all, a coffin is cheaper than looking after someone who loses a leg.

[Guest DisposableHeroes]

It may have been Horace that said that particular lie, but Gordon Brown agrees. After all, a coffin is cheaper than looking after someone who loses a leg.

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

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.

Notes

Dulce et decorum est Pro Patria mori is from Horace. Owen wrote in a letter to his mother: "The famous Latin tag means of course It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country. Sweet! and decorous!"

Written in 1917 and first published in 1920.

Early drafts of the poem contain the dedications 'To Jessie Pope etc' and 'To a certain Poetess'. Before World War I, Pope was the author of children's books and light verse, her war related verse was collected in 1915 in Jessie Pope's War Poems and More War Poems.

[Guest theboltonfury]

It may have been Horace that said that particular lie, but Gordon Brown agrees. After all, a coffin is cheaper than looking after someone who loses a leg.

Poetry does nothing for me, with the exception of this one.

Didn't he die just a few days before the armistice?

[Prescience]

Which begs the inevitable rhetorical question, "Who's country?"

[erranta]

This thread should have Occult/Masonic member replies only tacked onto IT!

[Guest anorthosite]

This thread should have Occult/Masonic member replies only tacked onto IT!

No it bloody shouldn't. :angry:

[Guest theboltonfury]

This thread should have Occult/Masonic member replies only tacked onto IT!

2 posts in 24 hours from you that I think are written in a language that not even C3P0 could understand.

[Guest DisposableHeroes]

This thread should have Occult/Masonic member replies only tacked onto IT!

All seeing. I was just interested in the Latin. The sun gods were kind today, it reminds me of when I visited the pyramids.