+Do you consider it a special gift to live in times
like ours? I do – at least in my better moments.
It is a gift to live in times of change, because, standing
at a turning point, one can make a difference. This
poem marks a turning point in human consciousness.
Its Latin
title proclaims a maxim few dared to question at its
time: “Sweet it is and beautiful to die for the
fatherland.” For millennia this had stood as
if carved in granite; this WW I poem shows it to be
a lie.
Changes of such magnitude take time to sink in. Nearly
a hundred years after Wilfred Owen wrote these lines,
they still challenge us to make a difference. Never
before in history have so many “children ardent
for some desperate glory” been armed with such
weapons of mass destruction. But never before have
so many millions
from every corner of the world shouted on the same
day and as if with one voice: “Peace!” – Br. David, 2003 A.D.
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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.
--Wilfred Owens
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