My Sentiment For The Day
Apr. 28th, 2009 04:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eumeliaWritten long ago in a mental hospital, this poem has always spoken to me, especially after the Second Lebanon War.
In memory of those who dies for this country, now 61 years old. In a few hours the black melancholy that wraps itself around the population will lift and the Independence Day celebrations will commence.
I'll be avoiding the crowds and going to a late night Mangal (BBQ) with [Southern!Girl] at a friends house, in which we will eat, drink and be cynical about the whole thing.
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*.
Wilfred Owen, 1917 (Killed in the battle of the Sambre, November 4th 1918 - a week before Armistice)
*It is sweet and proper to die for one's country
It is said that Joseph Trumpledor, as he died, uttered "Never mind, it's good to die for ones country" ("en davar, tov lamut be-at artzenu"-אין דבר, טוב למות בעד ארצנו) which is very much a paraphrase of Horace's old adage, quoted in Owen's poem.
Personally, I think that like most soldiers who die in battle he probably swore an oath and cried for his mother.
In memory of those who dies for this country, now 61 years old. In a few hours the black melancholy that wraps itself around the population will lift and the Independence Day celebrations will commence.
I'll be avoiding the crowds and going to a late night Mangal (BBQ) with [Southern!Girl] at a friends house, in which we will eat, drink and be cynical about the whole thing.
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*.
Wilfred Owen, 1917 (Killed in the battle of the Sambre, November 4th 1918 - a week before Armistice)
*It is sweet and proper to die for one's country
It is said that Joseph Trumpledor, as he died, uttered "Never mind, it's good to die for ones country" ("en davar, tov lamut be-at artzenu"-אין דבר, טוב למות בעד ארצנו) which is very much a paraphrase of Horace's old adage, quoted in Owen's poem.
Personally, I think that like most soldiers who die in battle he probably swore an oath and cried for his mother.
