Memento mori day: Requiescat in pace

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    The Old lie

    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 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.

    Fred adds, from the dark side, a stark view of those   " Children ardent for some desperate glory"

     

     


    LULU this is just delightful? This is vonderful!

    My poor Dad was in WWII.

    Dad came back sick, sore and disabled in his mind.

    He just wished to be a patriot and a hero at 18!

    But he came back a disabled mind.

    I love AA.

    I just love your poem.

    WELL DONE.

    This really must sound trite but I hereby render unto Lulu the Dayly Comment/Poem of the Day Award for this here Dagblog Site, given to all of Lulu from all of me!

    Thank you

     


    Richard, I would both pleased and honored to get your reward legitimately but the poem, which I agree is very good, was not by me. I mistakenly failed to give attribution to the author, Wilfred Owen, who lived the experience in WWI that he wrote about, was injured himself, and after recovery went back to the front only to be killed a month before the armistice was signed. One more victim out of millions. Just a stupid sad waste which is the universal, for all times, inevitable result of war. 

     


    Well said Lulu.

    Universal for all times as you put it.

    DAMN

    THE RESULT OF WAR!

     


    It's one of my favorites to read on Memorial Day, I know Owen's work well, so thanks for adding it.

    It sort of always bothers me that people treat the day like a fun "start of the summer" holiday, it's a deadly serious day to remember the war dead. So I try to take a few minutes to do so in my own way. Mostly with poetry in my case, though photographs sometimes seem appropriate too, historic and of memorials.


    Yes, it is a powerful poem. It says very much in a few words as does the one you started this with. I agree with appreciate your second paragraph.  


    Just found a serendipitous link between the two poems posted:

    Garden of peace to be created to honour war poet Wilfred Owen @ The Scotsman, May 27

    He gave voice to the infantrymen of the First World War with his unflinching studies of the horror of conflict. Now, a century on from his stay at Edinburgh’s pioneering Craiglockhart War Hospital, a garden of remembrance is to be created in honour of the poet Wilfred Owen [....]

    He was diagnosed with shell shock after serving with the 2nd Battalion, Manchester Regiment, and was sent for treatment at Craiglockhart, now part of Edinburgh Napier University’s Craiglockhart campus. During his time in the city, he met fellow war poet, Siegfried Sassoon, who would play a pivotal role in encouraging the young Owen to document his experiences. Over the course of just four months in Edinburgh, he became the editor of the hospital magazine, The Hydra, and wrote dozens of poems. They included Dulce Et Decorum Est and Anthem For Doomed Youth, two of his most enduring works which addressed, in Owen’s words, the “pity of war” [....]


    Is Mori Day related to Doris? Que sera sera, you know....


    Mori (death,) he is the meme of all memes. He can never get enough attention, and many artists pay it. But Doris? It's hard to see, not saying it's not there but....


    Mori Gory, we adore thee, what's the story, Morning Glori?

    Doris, Boris, borealis. Hic quo vadis? Exult regis

    ​Vini, vici, versaci. Disculpe mihi, mater, quia peccavi. Exitus.


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