Armistice Day



The Explorers Club
No. LI - The poetry of the Great War (1914-1918), specifically but not exclusively "In Flanders Fields" and "Dulce Et Decorum Est."

"In Flanders Fields"
by John McCrae (1872-1918)

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.





"Dulce Et Decorum Est"
by Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)

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, chocking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon 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.





I am a monoglot. I studied both Spanish and German, but failed to pursue diligently those studies and accordingly mastered neither tongue. My predilection, then, by both nationality and education, is to English-language poets, exemplified here by Lieutenant Colonel Dr. McCrae, a Canadian, and the British Leftenant Owen. But the Great War was truly a worldwide war and I am certain that those dark years are the subject of brilliant poetry in the French, German, Italian, Russian, Flemish, Hungarian, Turkish, and Arabic, et al., languages.

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
June Tabor, "No Man's Land/Flowers of the Forest" from Green Linnet Records: The Twentieth Anniversary Collection (T.L.A.M.)