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Page One World War Poems

Poems from the two world wars show us that life's bitter side comes from some what, our own doing...

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, 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.*
*"It is sweet and meet (fitting) to die for one's country."
Wilfred Owen
What Dulce et decorum est means is sarcastic to say the least. "How sweet it is to die for ones country" said by Owen following a poem of marching through sludge and people being gassed to death, can't mean it's sweet. This particular poem tells of how life is in war, the death and despair felt in war times is unparallel to most things we can imagen. Certainly this shows the dark side of life, at least in war time. Does war really have to occur? Disputes between countries can bring such sorrow to its people.

John McCrae

In Flanders Fields
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

This poem is talking about a field that was used as a burial ground for WW1's Dead. The poppies the poem is talking about do not grow under normal conditions. Only when someone roots, or disterbs the soil. During burriel of a solider on the western front the soil gets dug up for each hole dug; in fact the whole front consisted of this churned up soil. When McCrae wrote, poppies were blossoming like never before. The third verse is not included in most versions (took some doing finding it).. The quallity of the third verse is also not of McCrae's best. Finally it talks of a quarrel with "the foe". There was no real "quarrel" between the soldiers, only in the minds of politicians. This relates to my theme because what shows depression and despair in life then a burial ground that spans Europe.

Break of Day in the Trenches

The darkness crumbles away
It is the same old druid Time as ever,
Only a live thing leaps my hand,
A queer sardonic rat,
As I pull the parapet's poppy (5)

To stick behind my ear.
Droll rat, they would shoot you if they knew
Your cosmopolitan sympathies,
Now you have touched this English hand
You will do the same to a German (10)

Soon, no doubt, if it be your pleasure
To cross the sleeping green between.
It seems you inwardly grin as you pass
Strong eyes, fine limbs, haughty athletes,
Less chanced than you for life, (15)

Bonds to the whims of murder,
Sprawled in the bowels of the earth,
The torn fields of France.
What do you see in our eyes
At the shrieking iron and flame (20)

Hurled through still heavens?
What quaver -what heart aghast?
Poppies whose roots are in men's veins
Drop, and are ever dropping;
But mine in my ear is safe, (25)

Just a little white with the dust.
- Isaac Rosenberg

This poem relates the theme of being in a trench during WW1. More specifically during dawn. This outlines the life in the trench during a fight. What we can get from this is not unlike what comes from Dulce et decrom est. The picture we get from this is one of slight hope of an end to fighting. but ever before you the "torn feilds of france".