Dulce et Decorum est

Ah, I just had this inspiration to reflect back on my good old days of doing English Literature during A' Levels. The days when I learn to analyse words and interpret them with emotions instead of staring at legal statutes..haha. There were lots of freedom during those days for the interpretation of the text that i read. Mastery of the language was key to describe every single emotion than ran through my veins. It was during those times that I had the opportunity to be exposed to lots of good poems and linguistic writings. Not only that, I get to create a few poems with the skills that I gain from analysing these talented writers. I'll begin my recollections with the very first poem which my English Literature lecturer started with, which I can still vividly remember, is from the Wilfred Owen collection of war poems. Here's Dulce et Decorum Est, one of his famous poems:

Dulce et Decorum est (Wilfred Owen)

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 gas-shells dropping softly 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
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.

Btw, Dulce et Decorum est means it is sweet to die for one's country in the Latin language. Wilfred Owen is confronting with the very lie that embodies the phrase in the poem since he experienced war personally and it is not as glorified as how the governments of the world had propogate it to be. I think this is a good start to open an English Literature or Poetry section in my blog since I started the History section already. Haha..stay tune next time for more poems and other cool writings by prominent writers! :)