tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2343439372519556254.post6880557539999953284..comments2024-02-11T03:50:53.613-05:00Comments on Counterlight's Peculiars: The Great WarUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2343439372519556254.post-50756866887041676652014-06-27T22:27:31.799-04:002014-06-27T22:27:31.799-04:00As you may have noticed, there are several differe...As you may have noticed, there are several different versions of the poem---particularly that last line of the first stanza, re the shells.<br /><br />There was a British (BBC, I assume, via PBS Masterpiece Theater) production in the late 1970s called "Testament of Youth" (from the Vera Brittain WW1 memoir of the same title) wherein this poem was read. "If in some smothering dream...": I've been haunted by it ever since.JCFhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14516376500318551838noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2343439372519556254.post-51696843299121092942014-06-27T17:56:47.098-04:002014-06-27T17:56:47.098-04:00I'm afraid that I agree with Ernest Hemingway&...I'm afraid that I agree with Ernest Hemingway's verdict on the First World War; a senseless waste of millions of lives.Counterlighthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14345956180434795401noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2343439372519556254.post-8634167743792851052014-06-27T17:27:05.981-04:002014-06-27T17:27:05.981-04:00Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-k...Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,<br />Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,<br />Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs<br />And towards our distant rest began to trudge.<br />Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots<br />But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;<br />Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots<br />Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.<br /><br />GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,<br />Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;<br />But someone still was yelling out and stumbling<br />And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--<br />Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light<br />As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.<br /><br />In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,<br />He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.<br /><br />If in some smothering dreams you too could pace<br />Behind the wagon that we flung him in,<br />And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,<br />His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;<br />If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood<br />Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,<br />Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud<br />Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--<br />My friend, you would not tell with such high zest<br />To children ardent for some desperate glory,<br />The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est<br />Pro patria mori.<br /><br /><br />Dulce Et Decorum Est, Wilfred Owen (d. 1918)<br /><br />WAR NO MORE!!!JCFhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14516376500318551838noreply@blogger.com