Killing Fields

Poems, in the form of nursery rhymes, were, for many of us, our introduction to stories. I will post a favourite poem each week. Email me your favourite poems and I will post them too.

This week's poem is by Wilfred Owen whose work I read for A levels. He was a World War I poet, but not the sort who glorified war. He told the truth and was sometimes pretty graphic with his descriptions about the horrors of the battlefield.

This poem, describing the effects of gas poisoning, is one of his best known - the final lines, which mean "It is sweet and proper to die for one's country", are a bit of propoganda, used ironically by Owen who knew that the death of a soldier was far from glorious and honourable.

I've chosen John Singer Sargent's painting, Gassed, to illustrate Dulce Et Decorum Est. The canvas, which hangs in the Imperial War Museum in London, is over seven feet high and twenty feet long, and depicts soldiers, blinded by gas, being led in lines back to the hospital tents and the dressing stations.

According to reports written at the time, the effects of mustard gas does not become apparent for up to twelve hours. Then it begins to rot the body, within and without, blistering the skin and the eyeballs. Nausea and vomiting follow. The gas also attacks the bronchial tubes, stripping off the mucous membrane. Soldiers had to be strapped to their beds as the pain they felt was so great that they would thrash about wildly. It took a victim four to five weeks to die.

Owen was killed in action on the banks of the Sambre-Oise canal on 4th November 1918, a week before Armistice Day.

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

 

Comments

[Elizabeth Wong]

Oh wow. What did you think of my essay? And thanks for your help!

[Daphne]

"Futility" sends shivers up and down my spine. Also love "Strange Meeting". In fact, there's hardly a poem by Owen that I don't like. BTW, thanks for email, ELizabeth. Hope you've found the book.

BTW, congrats on winning in aprize for the MPH Young Writers Awards. I was one of the judges, you know ;)

[Elizabeth Wong]

Oohh!! We just did WW1 in History class. Anyway, I love 'Futility' by Wilfred Owen best!