Paul Revere by Cyrus Dallin, North End, Boston

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Monday, May 27, 2013

American Cemetery, Normandy, France

I visited this beautiful and moving cemetery a few years ago.  It was an experience I will never forget.



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,(11) 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

3 comments:

FreeThinke said...

Lanarkshire Mill Pond - December 1913

Heavy bundled sweaters dwarf the child within,
Jaunty caps obscure each face save giant grins,
Two cousins balance on their skates,
Link mittened hands and pose
Mid glide in the cold Scottish winds.

A brilliant radiant Edwardian December,
Proud grandfather skating backwards
Points his new Christmas camera
To catch young lads and carefree smiles
Skating in the brisk Lanarkshire air.

Six months to the day, a vast continent away:
Mistaken chauffeur driving backwards,
Gavrilo Princip points a borrowed pistol
To catch minor royalty and feint-grins
Waving in the sultry Sarajevo air.

Heavy brutal bombardments decimate battalions,
Once-jaunty teenagers from mill towns and crofts
Huddle in torrid Turkish trenches, link quivering hands,
Recall when younger joyful hands had gathered purple heather,
“Queen daisies growing in the tall red grass…
And bluebells tossing in transparent fields.”

Before going over the top. Up, up
An exposed rocky cliff in remote Gallipoli.


~ Kathy Sanderson Zwick (born 1941)


“I came back with an idée fixe – never again should men be made to suffer as in these years of war.”
(Annals, 89) Hugh MacDiarmid - 1918

BB-Idaho said...

We are a small town. One of ours,
an Army Captain, was killed in Iraq
five years back. He lies at Arlington. Another who grew up here, moved to Massachusetts with his family. He was just killed in
Iraq and returns tomorrow where he
will lie with his next to his grandfather . IMO, there should be very compelling reasons to put young lives in harm's way.

FreeThinke said...

It feels a shame to be Alive --
When Men so brave -- are dead --
One envies the Distinguished Dust --
Permitted -- such a Head --

The Stone -- that tells defending Whom
This Spartan put away
What little of Him we -- possessed
In Pawn for Liberty --

The price is great -- Sublimely paid --
Do we deserve -- a Thing --
That lives -- like Dollars -- must be piled
Before we may obtain?

Are we that wait -- sufficient worth --
That such Enormous Pearl
As life -- dissolved be -- for Us --
In Battle's -- horrid Bowl?

It may be -- a Renown to live --
I think the Man who die --
Those unsustained -- Saviors --
Present Divinity --


!~ Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)