Ten Poems: Owen’s “Dulce et Decorum Est”

Langston Hughes’ simple yet powerful “Harlem” (see previous post in this series) considers the consequences of dreams that have been deferred for too long. This is possibly the starting point for understanding what drives desperate people. Perhaps just as important, however, is for us to realize the terrible price of desperate actions. A poem like this one forces us to take pacifism seriously.

DULCE ET DECORUM EST
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 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 floundering like a man in fire or lime . . .
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 yes 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 patri mori.*

*It is sweet and proper to die for one’s country.

Wilfred Owen (1893-1918) is an English WWI poet, and arguably the most famous anti-war poet of the period. His poetry directly reflects his experience of war, which ultimately took his life at the age of 25.

You can also find a video clip of this poem as part of the My Favorite Poem Project, an online collection of the favorite poems of ordinary Americans with their accompanying stories. This particular clip features a woman whose father was a WWII veteran.

War is of course a rich subject of poetry. On the intersection of war and love in particular, take a look at the different perspectives suggested by “Politics” (William Butler Yeats) and the older “To Lucasta, Going to the Wars” (Richard Lovelace).