hi newbie here
i copied this so everyone knows what i'm talking about when i say my piece at the end as we where a bit off topic folks
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Recently, I have been studying the WWI poets.
Mostly Sassoon and Owen.
'Dulce Et Decorum Est' by Wilfred Owen, is outstanding.
NB "Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori" translates as "It is sweet and honourable to die for one's country."
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 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 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.
Owen wrote in his draft preface: (source Wilfred Owen The War Poems Edited By Jon Stallworthy, Chatto & Windus Limited, London 1994)
'All a poet can do today is warn. That is why the true poets must be truthful.'
Also: 'This book is not about heros. English poetry is not yet fit to speak of them.'
Owen was killed on the night of 3/4 November 1918
Peace,
Endy
this phrase was on the end of Kasabian's video for the song Empire and i was dying to know what it meant and after reading this i think the whole Kasabian song and video , maybe even the album Empire, is about this underrated piece of literay genius.
Just a wee thought