My soul looked down from a vague height with Death, As unremembering how I rose or why, And saw a sad land, weak with sweats of dearth, Gray, cratered like the moon with hollow woe, And fitted with great pocks and scabs of plaques.
Across its beard, that horror of harsh wire, There moved thin caterpillars, slowly uncoiled. It seemed they pushed themselves to be as plugs Of ditches, where they writhed and shrivelled, killed.
By them had slimy paths been trailed and scraped Round myriad warts that might be little hills.
From gloom's last dregs these long-strung creatures crept, And vanished out of dawn down hidden holes.
(And smell came up from those foul openings As out of mouths, or deep wounds deepening.)
On dithering feet upgathered, more and more, Brown strings towards strings of gray, with bristling spines, All migrants from green fields, intent on mire.
Those that were gray, of more abundant spawns, Ramped on the rest and ate them and were eaten.
I saw their bitten backs curve, loop, and straighten, I watched those agonies curl, lift, and flatten.
Whereat, in terror what that sight might mean, I reeled and shivered earthward like a feather.
And Death fell with me, like a deepening moan. And He, picking a manner of worm, which half had hid Its bruises in the earth, but crawled no further, Showed me its feet, the feet of many men, And the fresh-severed head of it, my head.
My arms have mutinied against me -- brutes! My fingers fidget like ten idle brats, My back's been stiff for hours, damned hours. Death never gives his squad a Stand-at-ease. I can't read. There: it's no use. Take your book. A short life and a merry one, my buck! We said we'd hate to grow dead old. But now, Not to live old seems awful: not to renew My boyhood with my boys, and teach 'em hitting, Shooting and hunting, -- all the arts of hurting! -- Well, that's what I learnt. That, and making money. Your fifty years in store seem none too many; But I've five minutes. God! For just two years To help myself to this good air of yours! One Spring! Is one too hard to spare? Too long? Spring air would find its own way to my lung, And grow me legs as quick as lilac-shoots.
Yes, there's the orderly. He'll change the sheets When I'm lugged out, oh, couldn't I do that? Here in this coffin of a bed, I've thought I'd like to kneel and sweep his floors for ever, -- And ask no nights off when the bustle's over, For I'd enjoy the dirt; who's prejudiced Against a grimed hand when his own's quite dust, -- Less live than specks that in the sun-shafts turn? Dear dust, -- in rooms, on roads, on faces' tan! I'd love to be a sweep's boy, black as Town; Yes, or a muckman. Must I be his load? A flea would do. If one chap wasn't bloody, Or went stone-cold, I'd find another body.
Which I shan't manage now. Unless it's yours. I shall stay in you, friend, for some few hours. You'll feel my heavy spirit chill your chest, And climb your throat on sobs, until it's chased On sighs, and wiped from off your lips by wind.
I think on your rich breathing, brother, I'll be weaned To do without what blood remained me from my wound.
The browns, the olives, and the yellows died, And were swept up to heaven; where they glowed Each dawn and set of sun till Christmastide, And when the land lay pale for them, pale-snowed, Fell back, and down the snow-drifts flamed and flowed.
From off your face, into the winds of winter, The sun-brown and the summer-gold are blowing; But they shall gleam with spiritual glinter, When paler beauty on your brows falls snowing, And through those snows my looks shall be soft-going.
My shy hand shades a hermitage apart, - O large enough for thee, and thy brief hours. Life there is sweeter held than in God's heart, Stiller than in the heavens of hollow flowers.
The wine is gladder there than in gold bowls. And Time shall not drain thence, nor trouble spill. Sources between my fingers feed all souls, Where thou mayest cool thy lips, and draw thy fill.
Five cushions hath my hand, for reveries; And one deep pillow for thy brow's fatigues; Languor of June all winterlong, and ease For ever from the vain untravelled leagues.
Thither your years may gather in from storm, And Love, that sleepeth there, will keep thee warm.
I have been urged by earnest violins And drunk their mellow sorrows to the slake Of all my sorrows and my thirsting sins. My heart has beaten for a brave drum's sake. Huge chords have wrought me mighty: I have hurled Thuds of gods' thunder. And with old winds pondered Over the curse of this chaotic world,- With low lost winds that maundered as they wandered.
I have been gay with trivial fifes that laugh; And songs more sweet than possible things are sweet; And gongs, and oboes. Yet I guessed not half Life's symphony till I had made hearts beat, And touched Love's body into trembling cries, And blown my love's lips into laughs and sighs. Wilfred Owen
There was a whispering in my hearth, A sigh of the coal. Grown wistful of a former earth It might recall.
I listened for a tale of leaves And smothered ferns, Frond-forests; and the low, sly lives Before the fawns.
My fire might show steam-phantoms simmer From Time's old cauldron, Before the birds made nests in summer, Or men had children.
But the coals were murmuring of their mine, And moans down there Of boys that slept wry sleep, and men Writhing for air.
And I saw white bones in the cinder-shard, Bones without number. For many hearts with coal are charred, And few remember.
I thought of all that worked dark pits Of war, and died Digging the rock where Death reputes Peace lies indeed.
Comforted years will sit soft-chaired In rooms of amber; The years will stretch their hands, well-cheered By our lifes' ember.
The centuries will burn rich loads With which we groaned, Whose warmth shall lull their dreaming lids, While songs are crooned. But they will not dream of us poor lads Left in the ground.
Who are these? Why sit they here in twilight? Wherefore rock they, purgatorial shadows, Drooping tongues from jaws that slob their relish, Baring teeth that leer like skulls' tongues wicked? Stroke on stroke of pain, -- but what slow panic, Gouged these chasms round their fretted sockets? Ever from their hair and through their hand palms Misery swelters. Surely we have perished Sleeping, and walk hell; but who these hellish?
-- These are men whose minds the Dead have ravished. Memory fingers in their hair of murders, Multitudinous murders they once witnessed. Wading sloughs of flesh these helpless wander, Treading blood from lungs that had loved laughter. Always they must see these things and hear them, Batter of guns and shatter of flying muscles, Carnage incomparable and human squander Rucked too thick for these men's extrication.
Therefore still their eyeballs shrink tormented Back into their brains, because on their sense Sunlight seems a bloodsmear; night comes blood-black; Dawn breaks open like a wound that bleeds afresh -- Thus their heads wear this hilarious, hideous, Awful falseness of set-smiling corpses. -- Thus their hands are plucking at each other; Picking at the rope-knouts of their scourging; Snatching after us who smote them, brother, Pawing us who dealt them war and madness.
Between the brown hands of a server-lad The silver cross was offered to be kissed. The men came up, lugubrious, but not sad, And knelt reluctantly, half-prejudiced. (And kissing, kissed the emblem of a creed.) Then mourning women knelt; meek mouths they had, (And kissed the Body of the Christ indeed.) Young children came, with eager lips and glad. (These kissed a silver doll, immensely bright.) Then I, too, knelt before that acolyte. Above the crucifix I bent my head: The Christ was thin, and cold, and very dead: And yet I bowed, yea, kissed - my lips did cling. (I kissed the warm live hand that held the thing.)
So the church Christ was hit and buried Under its rubbish and its rubble. In cellars, packed-up saints long serried, Well out of hearing of our trouble.
One Virgin still immaculate Smiles on for war to flatter her. She's halo'd with an old tin hat, But a piece of hell will batter her.
You! What d’you mean by this?’ I rapped. ‘You dare come on parade like this?’ ‘Please, sir, it’s -’ ”Old yer mouth,’ the sergeant snapped. ‘I takes ‘is name, sir?’ – ‘Please, and then dismiss.’
Some days ‘confined to camp’ he got, For being ‘dirty on parade’. He told me, afterwards, the damned spot Was blood, his own. ‘Well, blood is dirt,’ I said.
‘Blood’s dirt,’ he laughed, looking away Far off to where his wound had bled And almost merged for ever into clay. ‘The world is washing out its stains,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t like our cheeks so red: Young blood’s its great objection. But when we’re duly white-washed, being dead, The race will bear Field-Marshal God’s inspection.’
Happy are men who yet before they are killed Can let their veins run cold. Whom no compassion fleers Or makes their feet Sore on the alleys cobbled with their brothers. The front line withers, But they are troops who fade, not flowers For poets' tearful fooling: Men, gaps for filling Losses who might have fought Longer; but no one bothers.
II
And some cease feeling Even themselves or for themselves. Dullness best solves The tease and doubt of shelling, And Chance's strange arithmetic Comes simpler than the reckoning of their shilling. They keep no check on Armies' decimation.
III
Happy are these who lose imagination: They have enough to carry with ammunition. Their spirit drags no pack. Their old wounds save with cold can not more ache. Having seen all things red, Their eyes are rid Of the hurt of the colour of blood for ever. And terror's first constriction over, Their hearts remain small drawn. Their senses in some scorching cautery of battle Now long since ironed, Can laugh among the dying, unconcerned.
IV
Happy the soldier home, with not a notion How somewhere, every dawn, some men attack, And many sighs are drained. Happy the lad whose mind was never trained: His days are worth forgetting more than not. He sings along the march Which we march taciturn, because of dusk, The long, forlorn, relentless trend From larger day to huger night.
V
We wise, who with a thought besmirch Blood over all our soul, How should we see our task But through his blunt and lashless eyes? Alive, he is not vital overmuch; Dying, not mortal overmuch; Nor sad, nor proud, Nor curious at all. He cannot tell Old men's placidity from his.
VI
But cursed are dullards whom no cannon stuns, That they should be as stones. Wretched are they, and mean With paucity that never was simplicity. By choice they made themselves immune To pity and whatever mourns in man Before the last sea and the hapless stars; Whatever mourns when many leave these shores; Whatever shares The eternal reciprocity of tears.
[I saw his round mouth's crimson deepen as it fell], Like a Sun, in his last deep hour; Watched the magnificent recession of farewell, Clouding, half gleam, half glower, And a last splendour burn the heavens of his cheek. And in his eyes The cold stars lighting, very old and bleak, In different skies.
All sounds have been as music to my listening: Pacific lamentations of slow bells, The crunch of boots on blue snow rosy-glistening, Shuffle of autumn leaves; and all farewells:
Bugles that sadden all the evening air, And country bells clamouring their last appeals Before [the] music of the evening prayer; Bridges, sonorous under carriage wheels.
Gurgle of sluicing surge through hollow rocks, The gluttonous lapping of the waves on weeds, Whisper of grass; the myriad-tinkling flocks, The warbling drawl of flutes and shepherds' reeds.
The orchestral noises of October nights Blowing ( ) symphonetic storms Of startled clarions ( ) Drums, rumbling and rolling thunderous and ( ).
Thrilling of throstles in the keen blue dawn, Bees fumbling and fuming over sainfoin-fields.
One reading by that calm bank shaded eyes To watch her lessening westward quietly. Then, as she neared the bend, her funnel screamed. And that long lamentation made him wise How unto Avalon, in agony, Kings passed in the dark barge, which Merlin dreamed. Wilfred Owen
Ever again to breathe pure happiness, So happy that we gave away our toy? We smiled at nothings, needing no caress? Have we not laughed too often since with Joy? Have we not stolen too strange and sorrowful wrongs For her hands' pardoning? The sun may cleanse, And time, and starlight. Life will sing great songs, And gods will show us pleasures more than men's.
Yet heaven looks smaller than the old doll's-home, No nestling place is left in bluebell bloom, And the wide arms of trees have lost their scope. The former happiness is unreturning: Boys' griefs are not so grievous as our yearning, Boys have no sadness sadder than our hope.
Red lips are not so red As the stained stones kissed by the English dead. Kindness of wooed and wooer Seems shame to their love pure. O Love, your eyes lose lure When I behold eyes blinded in my stead!
Your slender attitude Trembles not exquisite like limbs knife-skewed, Rolling and rolling there Where God seems not to care; Till the fierce love they bear Cramps them in death's extreme decrepitude.
Your voice sings not so soft,- Though even as wind murmuring through raftered loft,- Your dear voice is not dear, Gentle, and evening clear, As theirs whom none now hear, Now earth has stopped their piteous mouths that coughed.
Heart, you were never hot Nor large, nor full like hearts made great with shot; And though your hand be pale, Paler are all which trail Your cross through flame and hail: Weep, you may weep, for you may touch them not.
Leaves Murmuring by miriads in the shimmering trees. Lives Wakening with wonder in the Pyrenees. Birds Cheerily chirping in the early day. Bards Singing of summer, scything thro' the hay. Bees Shaking the heavy dews from bloom and frond. Boys Bursting the surface of the ebony pond. Flashes Of swimmers carving thro' the sparkling cold. Fleshes Gleaming with wetness to the morning gold. A mead Bordered about with warbling water brooks. A maid Laughing the love-laugh with me; proud of looks. The heat Throbbing between the upland and the peak. Her heart Quivering with passion to my pressed cheek. Braiding Of floating flames across the mountain brow. Brooding Of stillness; and a sighing of the bough. Stirs Of leaflets in the gloom; soft petal-showers; Stars Expanding with the starr'd nocturnal
Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knife us . . . Wearied we keep awake because the night is silent . . . Low drooping flares confuse our memory of the salient . . . Worried by silence, sentries whisper, curious, nervous, But nothing happens.
Watching, we hear the mad gusts tugging on the wire. Like twitching agonies of men among its brambles. Northward incessantly, the flickering gunnery rumbles, Far off, like a dull rumour of some other war. What are we doing here?
The poignant misery of dawn begins to grow . . . We only know war lasts, rain soaks, and clouds sag stormy. Dawn massing in the east her melancholy army Attacks once more in ranks on shivering ranks of gray, But nothing happens.
Sudden successive flights of bullets streak the silence. Less deadly than the air that shudders black with snow, With sidelong flowing flakes that flock, pause and renew, We watch them wandering up and down the wind's nonchalance, But nothing happens.
Pale flakes with lingering stealth come feeling for our faces -- We cringe in holes, back on forgotten dreams, and stare, snow-dazed, Deep into grassier ditches. So we drowse, sun-dozed, Littered with blossoms trickling where the blackbird fusses. Is it that we are dying?
Slowly our ghosts drag home: glimpsing the sunk fires glozed With crusted dark-red jewels; crickets jingle there; For hours the innocent mice rejoice: the house is theirs; Shutters and doors all closed: on us the doors are closed -- We turn back to our dying.
Since we believe not otherwise can kind fires burn; Now ever suns smile true on child, or field, or fruit. For God's invincible spring our love is made afraid; Therefore, not loath, we lie out here; therefore were born, For love of God seems dying.
To-night, His frost will fasten on this mud and us, Shrivelling many hands and puckering foreheads crisp. The burying-party, picks and shovels in their shaking grasp, Pause over half-known faces. All their eyes are ice, But nothing happens.
His fingers wake, and flutter up the bed. His eyes come open with a pull of will, Helped by the yellow may-flowers by his head. A blind-cord drawls across the window-sill . . . How smooth the floor of the ward is! what a rug! And who's that talking, somewhere out of sight? Why are they laughing? What's inside that jug? "Nurse! Doctor!" "Yes; all right, all right."
But sudden dusk bewilders all the air -- There seems no time to want a drink of water. Nurse looks so far away. And everywhere Music and roses burnt through crimson slaughter. Cold; cold; he's cold; and yet so hot: And there's no light to see the voices by -- No time to dream, and ask -- he knows not what.
The beautiful, the fair, the elegant, Is that which pleases us, says Kant, Without a thought of interest or advantage.
I used to watch men when they spoke of beauty And measure their enthusiasm. One An old man, seeing a ( ) setting sun, Praised it ( ) a certain sense of duty To the calm evening and his time of life. I know another man that never says a Beauty But of a horse; ( )
Men seldom speak of beauty, beauty as such, Not even lovers think about it much. Women of course consider it for hours In mirrors; ( )
A shrapnel ball - Just where the wet skin glistened when he swam - Like a fully-opened sea-anemone. We both said 'What a beauty! What a beauty, lad' I knew that in that flower he saw a hope Of living on, and seeing again the roses of his home. Beauty is that which pleases and delights, Not bringing personal advantage - Kant. But later on I heard A canker worked into that crimson flower And that he sank with it And laid it with the anemones off Dover.
Under his helmet, up against his pack, After so many days of work and waking, Sleep took him by the brow and laid him back.
2nd stanza
There, in the happy no-time of his sleeping, Death took him by the heart. There heaved a quaking Of the aborted life within him leaping, Then chest and sleepy arms once more fell slack.
3rd stanza
And soon the slow, stray blood came creeping From the intruding lead, like ants on track.
4rth stanza
Whether his deeper sleep lie shaded by the shaking Of great wings, and the thoughts that hung the stars, High-pillowed on calm pillows of God's making, Above these clouds, these rains, these sleets of lead, And these winds' scimitars, -Or whether yet his thin and sodden head Confuses more and more with the low mould, His hair being one with the grey grass Of finished fields, and wire-scrags rusty-old, Who knows? Who hopes? Who troubles? Let it pass! He sleeps. He sleeps less tremulous, less cold, Than we who wake, and waking say Alas!
Let the boy try along this bayonet-blade How cold steel is, and keen with hunger of blood; Blue with all malice, like a madman's flash; And thinly drawn with famishing for flesh.
2nd stanza
Lend him to stroke these blind, blunt bullet-heads Which long to muzzle in the hearts of lads. Or give him cartridges of fine zinc teeth, Sharp with the sharpness of grief and death.
3rd stanza
For his teeth seem for laughing round an apple. There lurk no claws behind his fingers supple; And God will grow no talons at his heels, Nor antlers through the thickness of his curls.
I, too, saw God through mud -- The mud that cracked on cheeks when wretches smiled. War brought more glory to their eyes than blood, And gave their laughs more glee than shakes a child.
Merry it was to laugh there -- Where death becomes absurd and life absurder. For power was on us as we slashed bones bare Not to feel sickness or remorse of murder.
I, too, have dropped off fear -- Behind the barrage, dead as my platoon, And sailed my spirit surging, light and clear Past the entanglement where hopes lay strewn;
And witnessed exultation -- Faces that used to curse me, scowl for scowl, Shine and lift up with passion of oblation, Seraphic for an hour; though they were foul.
I have made fellowships -- Untold of happy lovers in old song. For love is not the binding of fair lips With the soft silk of eyes that look and long,
By Joy, whose ribbon slips, -- But wound with war's hard wire whose stakes are strong; Bound with the bandage of the arm that drips; Knit in the welding of the rifle-thong.
I have perceived much beauty In the hoarse oaths that kept our courage straight; Heard music in the silentness of duty; Found peace where shell-storms spouted reddest spate.
Nevertheless, except you share With them in hell the sorrowful dark of hell, Whose world is but the trembling of a flare, And heaven but as the highway for a shell,
You shall not hear their mirth: You shall not come to think them well content By any jest of mine. These men are worth Your tears: You are not worth their merriment.
So neck to stubborn neck, and obstinate knee to knee, Wrestled those two; and peerless Heracles Could not prevail, nor get at any vantage… So those huge hands that, small, had snapped great snakes, Let slip the writhing of Antaeus' wrists: Those hero's hands that wrenched the necks of bulls, Now fumbled round the slim Antaeus' limbs, Baffled. Then anger swelled in Heracles, And terribly he grappled broader arms, And yet more firmly fixed his grasped feet. And up his back the muscles bulged and shone Like climbing banks and domes of towering cloud. And they who watched that wrestling say he laughed, But no so loud as on Eurystheus of old. Wilfred Owen
Not one corner of a foreign field But a span as wide as Europe; An appearance of a titan's grave, And the length thereof a thousand miles, It crossed all Europe like a mystic road, Or as the Spirits' Pathway lieth on the night. And I heard a voice crying This is the Path of Glory. Wilfred Owen
1. Stark = Bare or blunt: 2. ridge = A long, narrow chain of hills or mountains. Also called ridgeline. 3. midge = any fragile mosquito-like dipterous insect of the family Chironomidae, occurring in dancing swarms, esp near water. 4. oozed = To flow or leak out slowly, as through small openings. 5. imminent = likely to occur at any moment; impending.
6. ponder = to consider something deeply and thoroughly; meditate. 7. buttercups = any of numerous plants of the genus Ranunculus, having glossy yellow flowers and deeply cut leaves. 8. brambles = a prickly shrub or bush. 9. gust = a strong, abrupt rush of wind.;A sudden burst, as of rain or smoke. 10. thrilled = excited greatly.
11. begird = encircle with or as if with a band. 12. bugle = a brass instrument without valves; used for military calls and fanfares. 13. clamorous = conspicuously and offensively loud. 14. haste = rapidity of action or motion. 15. flares = flames up with a bright, wavering light.
16. spurned = rejected disdainfully or contemptuously; 17. bounty = Something that is given liberally. 18. chasm = having gaps or a chasm. 19. steepened = made or become steep or steeper. 20. upsurge = a rapid rise or swell.
21. verge = the extreme edge or margin. 22. brink = the point at which something is likely to begin; the verge. 23. ventured = took a risk; dare. 24. drave = a haul or shoal of fish. 25. fiend = an evil spirit; a demon ;The Devil; Satan
The Title -Even Nature Offended by War
Owen expresses contempt towards war as states in this poem.Owen thinks war is a slaughter house where young soldiers are massacred mercilessly.This colossal waste of youths makes the poet write poetry.In this poem the poet draws the conflict between the Nature and the War.Here the soothing beauty is being raped by the inhumane War fare. Brutal War offends the beautiful Nature of the Spring who has embalmed the hurt soldiers.Thus the immense hatred against War is reflected here by the apt contrast between innumerable murdering of immature youths in war and the embalming beauty of the vernal Nature.
Stanza-wise Event told in Spring Offensive
'Halted against the shade of a last hill, They fed, and, lying easy, were at ease And, finding comfortable chests and knees Carelessly slept. But many there stood still To face the stark, blank sky beyond the ridge, Knowing their feet had come to the end of the world.'
The soldiers halted against the shade of a hill.They ate their meals,took rest and felt at ease and found comforts on the knees and chests mutually of the soldiers and carelessly slept. But many could not sleep as they were guarding standing and watching there , the vacuum universe beyond the ridge.They were doing such behavior as they knew ,they had come to the edge of this World,to the final destination of their lives -death,eternal sleep.
'Marvelling they stood, and watched the long grass swirled By the May breeze, murmurous with wasp and midge, For though the summer oozed into their veins Like the injected drug for their bones' pains, Sharp on their souls hung the imminent line of grass, Fearfully flashed the sky's mysterious glass.'
They stood marveling at the beauty of long grass swirled by the May breeze and filled in with the murmuring sound of wasp and midge.The extracted beauty of the Summer benumbed their bodies' pain as an injected drug.But they were frightened with the fear to be uprooted at any moment alike the grass swirled to and fro again and again.
'Hour after hour they ponder the warm field -- And the far valley behind, where the buttercups Had blessed with gold their slow boots coming up, Where even the little brambles would not yield, But clutched and clung to them like sorrowing hands; They breathe like trees unstirred.'
The soldiers were thinking of the beauty of the warm field and remembered the valley behind where the buttercups shed their golden pollens on their boots and the little brambles(prickly shrubs) clutched and clung to their feet like sorrowful mates(as if to prevent them from marching to the jaws of death). The soldiers stood like trees,while none is there to stir their leaves.
'Till like a cold gust thrilled the little word At which each body and its soul begird And tighten them for battle. No alarms Of bugles, no high flags, no clamorous haste -- Only a lift and flare of eyes that faced The sun, like a friend with whom their love is done. O larger shone that smile against the sun, -- Mightier than his whose bounty these have spurned'
Like a cold gust at the word of order,they tightened their belts. There was no bugle sounded,no flag hoisted,no clamorous hasty done .They only flared eyes to face the sun,their old and faithful friend.They smiled at it which had given them life and light. They rejected with disdain or contempt of their lives.
'So, soon they topped the hill, and raced together Over an open stretch of herb and heather Exposed. And instantly the whole sky burned With fury against them; and soft sudden cups Opened in thousands for their blood; and the green slopes Chasmed and steepened sheer to infinite space.'
They reached to the top of the hill and raced together over an open stretch of herb and heather,exposed to the enemies who instantly fired and made the place a slaughter house.Blood overflowed the cite.Through the chasms caused by the heavy shells the soldiers dipped into the edgeless hole.
'Of them who running on that last high place Leapt to swift unseen bullets, or went up On the hot blast and fury of hell's upsurge, Or plunged and fell away past this world's verge, Some say God caught them even before they fell.'
The soldiers who went to the top of the hill to face the enemy were shot or exploded and fallen down dead.They were not seen.It is said that they had been caught in the hand of God before their falling into the world.
'But what say such as from existence' brink Ventured but drave too swift to sink. The few who rushed in the body to enter hell, And there out-fiending all its fiends and flames With superhuman inhumanities, Long-famous glories, immemorial shames -- And crawling slowly back, have by degrees Regained cool peaceful air in wonder -- Why speak they not of comrades that went under?'
The battlefield was filled with fire and smoke making it into a hell by the bomb blasts by the enemies.The soldiers who survived suffered pain of deathless death .These soldiers murdered the enemy soldiers,urged them to pass through the passage and retreated to a cold place far reaching the enemy soldiers.Their mortal struggle for existence over the enemies by killing the enemy soldiers made them think over their inhumane brutality,fierceness.They were haunted and could not remember how they survived.It was a nightmare.They did not speak to if their comrades had been caught before falling into the earth on God's hands.They became speechless. 3rd Theme
Soldiers reached to the last corner of their battle.They took meals and rest .Some soldiers slept comfortably though they had no pillow.They put their heads on knees and chest of their comrades.They slept comfortably as they were tired of fighting.Some of their friends stood and wandered around.They seemed to guard the place.They looked at the beauty of the Nature .The tall grass swept by wind reminded them of their inevitable doomed future.
Brambles clung to the feet of the buttercups which gave golden pollens to remain there.There is none to stop their upward journey to hell. like this bramble to face the sure immature death.The beauty portrayed by Owen seemed to benumb their pains.
Finally after the rest in Ithaca like cite they were bugled and compelled to take action.They marched to the high spot where within a second they disappeared.They fell to ground after being shot with violent ,terrific fire.It was told foolishly that they were caught by God before their fall.This proverb was being invented to hush up the inhumane subject of mass killing from the eyes of the public by the war mongers.
But the soldiers who succeeded to escape from the battlefield by killing brutally their human foe soldiers became seriously weak to pronounce the lie that their fellow soldiers had been caught in the hands of God before they fell ,after they observed the atrocities of war directly.
Form
This poem contains seven stanzas interwoven consisting of forty six lines with rhyming and unremitting couplets or triplets in Iambic Pentameter with certain variations..The poem is rich with rhetorical figure like pathetic fallacy as found in the third stanza where buttercups and brambles are found to bless and prevent the inevitable doomed soldiers respectively .The expressions like superhuman inhumanities ,immemorial shames are examples of sharp oxymoron.Personifications and Ironies ,similes prevails the poem.The title is itself an instance of oxymoron.
It seemed that out of battle I escaped Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped Through granites which titanic wars had groined. Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned, Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred. Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared With piteous recognition in fixed eyes, Lifting distressful hands as if to bless. And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall By his dead smile I knew we stood in Hell. With a thousand pains that vision's face was grained; Yet no blood reached there from the upper ground, And no guns thumped, or down the flues made moan. "Strange friend," I said, "here is no cause to mourn." "None," said that other, "save the undone years, The hopelessness. Whatever hope is yours, Was my life also; I went hunting wild After the wildest beauty in the world, Which lies not calm in eyes, or braided hair, But mocks the steady running of the hour, And if it grieves, grieves richlier than here. For of my glee might many men have laughed And of my weeping something had been left, Which must die now. I mean the truth untold, The pity of war, the pity war distilled. Now men will go content with what we have spoiled, Or, discontent, boil bloody, and be spilled. They will be swift with the swiftness of the tigress. None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress. Courage was mine, and I had mystery, Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery: To miss the march of this retreating world Into vain citadels that are not walled. Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot-wheels, I would go up and wash them from sweet wells, Even with truths that lie too deep for taint. I would have poured my spirit without stint But not through wounds; not on the cess of war. Foreheads of men have bled where no wounds were. I am the enemy you killed, my friend. I knew you in this dark: for so you frowned Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed. I parried; but my hands were loath and cold. Let us sleep now . . . ." Meanings of Some Words or Expressions
escaped=fled away
tunnel = An underground
scooped= formed a hollow or hollows in;dug
groined=provided with groins(The curved edge at the junction of two intersecting vaults)
encumbered =loaded to excess or impeded by a heavy load;
groaned=voiced a deep, inarticulate sound, as of pain, grief, or displeasure.
probed =delved into; investigated
sprang up= jumped over
piteous =arousing pity
recognition =acceptance or acknowledgment of a claim, duty, fact, truth, etc.in fixed eyes,
sullen =showing irritation or ill humor by a gloomy silence or reserve.
grained=caused to form into grains; granulate.
save =except
braided =Decorated with braid
distilled= separated or extracted the essential elements of
spoiled=Goods or property seized from a victim after a conflict, especially after a military victory.
spilled=caused or allowed (a substance) to run or fall out of a container
trek =A journey or leg of a journey, especially when slow or difficult.
citadels =A stronghold or fortified place; a bulwark.
clogged =obstructed movement
stint=restrict or limit
cess =a. the obligation to provide the soldiers and household of the lord deputy with supplies at fixed prices
b. any military exaction
frowned=expressed (disapproval, for example) by wrinkling the brow
jabbed =poked or thrust abruptly; stab or pierce
parried= warded off (a sword thrust, blow, weapon, etc.); turned aside; dodged;parried a thrust, blow
loath =Unwilling or reluctant
The Poem-An Introduction
'I am the enemy you killed, my friend '
Strange Meeting was written in the spring of 1918. The name of Owen was enlisted in the month of January in 1917 and was sent to the war front of Somme .There he was stricken with a dangerous shell shock.He was hospitalized in Craiglockhart Hospital..Sassoon went there to see the poet who was greatly influenced by the great war poet Siegfried Sassoon.Besides Owen was being haunted there by nightmares for his terrific experience against the shock of the shell in the battlefield.There are Shelley's 'The Revolt of Islam',Sassoon's 'The Rear Guard' and Owen's 'Earth's Wheels' behind this great creation.
Owen himself is the first-person narrator.Though the second speaker is also catering the Owen's message of peace,compromise.Here the poet-speaker is playing two roles at the same time.He has double roles: one bullet-ed and the other bullet-er;one killed and the other killer who are delivering a speech for the sake of humanity and its progress by sharing their own bitter war experiences.
Structurally the poem comprises of forty four iambic pentameter lines .This poem is divided into three irregular stanzas with the para rhymed couplets.
Summary
Strange Meeting is a visionary poem where the poet speaks of a dream that he dreamed overnight .He imagines that he has fled away from battle and gone to the other world underneath the battlefield where two soldiers, an English soldier and a German soldier(who stands from among the eternal sleepers who are huddled together meet together .The dead one springs up with piteous recognition in fixed eyes.The poet considers the place as hell when he minutely observes the appearance of the dead soldier.Being asked the second speaker explains the cause of his bereavement.There is no cause to lament as the worry making components are totally absent there.It is quiet and calm.He is regretting because unfortunately devastating War has taken away his life before he could have passed on to humanity the true knowledge(the pity of war,the pity war distilled) he has gained from his direct experience in battlefield.With the end of his life,this knowledge also dies.The fact that the years wasted in war always haunts him and makes him lament.Thus the truth does not come to light.The warmongers may remain satisfied for what they have destroyed and if not may raise to the status of a more terrible,destructive,horrible one than the before.He doubts that the future world will continue organize more appalling war.The advancement of science or mechanics will add horror to it.WAR will be more expeditious.He could have joined the people in their backward march to bring them forward.If the talents and calibers would have been used other wise for the development of progress of human civilization ,the world would have watched a better world.He would have rejuvenated humanity with the blessings of universal brotherhood,racial equality,justice and freedom.He would have struggled to wean away from their inequities ,not on the tax or the demand of war ,but in the pursuit of peace and progress.He could pursue the poetic truth(not romantic love) that is above time.Now the strange friend tells the act of murdering him by the first soldier and the act of dying himself.The speaker abruptly addresses the first soldier to join him in the perpetual sleep.An enemy becomes a friend in hell. Date:18.04.2013 16:06:00
Light Explanation
The use of the word 'seemed' clearly backs up the establishing the poem as a visionary one where to the poet-speaker ,it appeared, such incident as stated in the poem took place in his life. The first speaker or the poet-speaker who murdered the enemy German soldier in the battlefield also fled away from the war front.Thus the victorious person did not like to be in the battlefield as he had gathered direct experience from the battle which taught him the true brutality of war.None in this beautiful earth wants to die . "It seemed that out of battle I escaped
The excessive loaded soldiers were voicing an inarticulate sound to berieve for their deaths but to make themselves purified because of their brutal activities they served for their country .They had done an inhumane duty for which they thought they were sent to the purgatory. The second speaker, understanding his own fault, descended to the down of the tunnel and investigated the enemy-friend who jumped up instantly being asked and expressed deep emotion he had .Here in this world all became slow.All became morbid,morose.First 'smile' refers to the reciprocal recognition while the second refers to the understanding of the poet about the place where he had come and recognized at once after watching the face of the dead that this was hell sure.'Piteous recognition' implies the remembering of the fight of these two against each other and the second's unfortunate untimely death in the hand of the first in spite of being the humanity they used to bear since their birth and surprisingly after its death he understood the truth and lifted his 'distressful' hands and blessed the first not to be killed in war and not to fight in war to save the world from the atrocities of war.He wanted this speaker to continue to bear the ideals he had gained from war field.'A thousand pains' refers to the unlimited suffering .'Vision face' refers to the face of the dead soldier.'Down the flues made moan' refers to the tattering sound made by canon balls as they are shot through the air.It resembles the wailing sound caused for the deaths of the soldiers.Now the poet speaker wanted the dead speaker not to lament because he had come to a world which was beyond the touch of sorrow and disappointment. But the dead soldier lamented not for such trivial reason but for the wastage of time for some mean cause;by which he could have tremendous duties for noble cause.He had great possibilities.But death caused a dead stop to his aim,mission, intention.He hankered after ideals of beauty which does not lie in the eyes of a beautiful woman or in the 'braided hair of her .If the dead soldier were alive he would have delivered to the world on the 'pity of war'.The German soldier had courage and the knowledge of mystery of war .He would have delivered it to the world.He would have tried to stop barbaric war.He would have certainly delivered theory of pacifism.Finally the German soldier asserted that the poet speaker was the enemy who had killed him on previous day.But he had no anger for his brutal act,he asked him to take rest which the German soldier felt.This suggestion to sleep again indicates the incident to take place in a sleeping condition or in a trance.
I mind as 'ow the night afore that show Us five got talking, -- we was in the know, "Over the top to-morrer; boys, we're for it, First wave we are, first ruddy wave; that's tore it." "Ah well," says Jimmy, -- an' 'e's seen some scrappin' -- "There ain't more nor five things as can 'appen; Ye get knocked out; else wounded -- bad or cushy; Scuppered; or nowt except yer feeling mushy."
2nd stanza
One of us got the knock-out, blown to chops. T'other was hurt, like, losin' both 'is props. An' one, to use the word of 'ypocrites, 'Ad the misfortoon to be took by Fritz. Now me, I wasn't scratched, praise God Almighty (Though next time please I'll thank 'im for a blighty), But poor young Jim, 'e's livin' an' 'e's not; 'E reckoned 'e'd five chances, an' 'e's 'ad; 'E's wounded, killed, and pris'ner, all the lot -- The ruddy lot all rolled in one. Jim's mad.
He dropped, -- more sullenly than wearily, Lay stupid like a cod, heavy like meat, And none of us could kick him to his feet; Just blinked at my revolver, blearily; -- Didn't appear to know a war was on, Or see the blasted trench at which he stared. "I'll do 'em in," he whined, "If this hand's spared, I'll murder them, I will."
2nd stanza A low voice said, "It's Blighty, p'raps, he sees; his pluck's all gone, Dreaming of all the valiant, that AREN'T dead: Bold uncles, smiling ministerially; Maybe his brave young wife, getting her fun In some new home, improved materially. It's not these stiffs have crazed him; nor the Hun."
3rd stanza
We sent him down at last, out of the way. Unwounded; -- stout lad, too, before that strafe. Malingering? Stretcher-bearers winked, "Not half!"
4th stanza
Next day I heard the Doc.'s well-whiskied laugh: "That scum you sent last night soon died. Hooray!"
1. 'Oh! Jesus Christ! I'm hit,' he said; and died. Whether he vainly cursed or prayed indeed, The Bullets chirped-In vain, vain, vain! Machine-guns chuckled,-Tut-tut! Tut-tut! And the Big Gun guffawed.
2. Another sighed,-'O Mother, -Mother, - Dad!' Then smiled at nothing, childlike, being dead. And the lofty Shrapnel-cloud Leisurely gestured,-Fool! And the splinters spat, and tittered.
3. 'My Love!' one moaned. Love-languid seemed his mood, Till slowly lowered, his whole faced kissed the mud. And the Bayonets' long teeth grinned; Rabbles of Shells hooted and groaned; And the Gas hissed.
So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went, And took the fire with him, and a knife. And as they sojourned, both of them together, Isaac the first-born spake, and said, My Father, Behold the preparations, fire and iron, But where the lamb for this burnt-offering? Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps, And builded parapets the trenches there, And stretched forth the knife to slay his son. When lo! an angel called him out of heaven, Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad, Neither do anything to him. Behold, A ram, caught in a thicket by its horns; Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him. But the old man would not so, but slew his son, And half the seed of Europe, one by one.
Down the close, darkening lanes they sang their way To the siding-shed, And lined the train with faces grimly gay.
Their breasts were stuck all white with wreath and spray As men's are, dead.
Dull porters watched them, and a casual tramp Stood staring hard, Sorry to miss them from the upland camp. Then, unmoved, signals nodded, and a lamp Winked to the guard.
So secretly, like wrongs hushed-up, they went. They were not ours: We never heard to which front these were sent.
Nor there if they yet mock what women meant Who gave them flowers.
Shall they return to beatings of great bells In wild trainloads? A few, a few, too few for drums and yells, May creep back, silent, to still village wells Up half-known roads.
My arms have mutinied against me -- brutes! My fingers fidget like ten idle brats, My back's been stiff for hours, damned hours. Death never gives his squad a Stand-at-ease. I can't read. There: it's no use. Take your book. A short life and a merry one, my buck! We said we'd hate to grow dead old. But now, Not to live old seems awful: not to renew My boyhood with my boys, and teach 'em hitting, Shooting and hunting, -- all the arts of hurting! -- Well, that's what I learnt. That, and making money. Your fifty years in store seem none too many; But I've five minutes. God! For just two years To help myself to this good air of yours! One Spring! Is one too hard to spare? Too long? Spring air would find its own way to my lung, And grow me legs as quick as lilac-shoots.
Yes, there's the orderly. He'll change the sheets When I'm lugged out, oh, couldn't I do that? Here in this coffin of a bed, I've thought I'd like to kneel and sweep his floors for ever, -- And ask no nights off when the bustle's over, For I'd enjoy the dirt; who's prejudiced Against a grimed hand when his own's quite dust, -- Less live than specks that in the sun-shafts turn? Dear dust, -- in rooms, on roads, on faces' tan! I'd love to be a sweep's boy, black as Town; Yes, or a muckman. Must I be his load? A flea would do. If one chap wasn't bloody, Or went stone-cold, I'd find another body.
Which I shan't manage now. Unless it's yours. I shall stay in you, friend, for some few hours. You'll feel my heavy spirit chill your chest, And climb your throat on sobs, until it's chased On sighs, and wiped from off your lips by wind.
I think on your rich breathing, brother, I'll be weaned To do without what blood remained me from my wound.
If ever I dreamed of my dead name High in the heart of London, unsurpassed By Time for ever, and the Fugitive, Fame, There seeking a long sanctuary at last,
2.
I better that; and recollect with shame How once I longed to hide it from life's heats Under those holy cypresses, the same That shade always the quiet place of Keats,
3.
Now rather thank I God there is no risk Of gravers scoring it with florid screed, But let my death be memoried on this disc. Wear it, sweet friend. Inscribe no date nor deed. But may thy heart-beat kiss it night and day, Until the name grow vague and wear away.
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 disappointed shells 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 floundering 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.
word -meaning
sludge =mire mud
haunting =frequent
flares=blazes
trudge=a long tiring walk
hoots=shouts of contemptcry
writhing =twisting
froth=bubble
arden=enthusiastic
vile=Loathsome; disgusting.Unpleasant or objectionable:
sores=An open skin lesion, wound, or ulcer..A source of pain, distress, or irritation
jolt= A sudden, strong feeling of surprise or disappointment;a shock
choking=the act of suffocating (someone) by constricting the wind pipe suffocating
floundering=struggling with stumbling or plunging movements:: struggling clumsily, helplessly, or falteringly
fumbling=proceeding awkwardly and uncertainly;blunder:
limped =walked lamely, especially with irregularity. :moved or proceeded haltingly or unsteadily
Dulce Et Decorum Est Pro Patria Mori - TITLE
The title of this poem ,'Dulce Et Decorum Est' has been taken from a Latin poem by Horace.But this title has ironically applied here.Owen affirms that if a reader could watch,hear,smell,taste and feel an experience in battle field ,he would never repeat the true lie propunded by Horace in his poem with high enthusiasm that 'it is sweet and seemly to die for country'. Instead Owen says ,'My subject is war,and the pity of war' .The title of the poem'Dulce et Decorum Est' apparently makes us enter into a heroic poem which usually glorifies a soldier or a warrior and the war. Anti-heroic treatment of the war and warriors subverts the idea of heroism in war and converts it into reality ,here in this realistic Poem. 'Dulce Et Decorum Est'.In reality heroism in war is a romantic myth that has no true reasons or background for heroism.Through the use of irony Owen establishes his utter hatred towards war and reveals the pity of war.
This is the original LATIN POEM in English script from which Owen has taken the Title 'Dulce Et Decorum Est'.
Horace's Odes III
Angustam amice pauperiem pati Robustus acri militia puer Condiscat et Parthos ferocis Vexet eques metuendus hasta Vitamque sub divo et trepidis agat In rebus illum exmoenibus hosticis Matrona bellantis tyranni Prospiciens et adulta virgo suspiret,eheu,ne rudis agminum sponsus lacessat regius asperum tactu leonem,quem cruenta per medias rapit ita caedes.
Dulce et decorum es pro patria mori: Mors et fugacem persequitur virum Nec parcit imbellis inventae Poplitibus timidove tergo. Virtus repulsae nescia sordidae Intaminantis fulget honoribus Nec sumit aut ponit securis Arbitrio popularis aurae Virtus recludens immeritis mori Caelum negata ramptat iter via Coetusque vulguris et udam Spermit humum fugiente pinna. Est et fideli tuta silentio Merces:vetabo,qui Cereris sacrum Vuklgarit arcanae ,sub isdem Sittrabibu7s fragilemque mecum Solvat phaselon ,saepe Diespiter Neglectus incesto addidit integrum; Raro antecedentem scelestum Descruit pede Poema claudo.
This poem has been translated into English by Hugh Vibart Mac Naghten.
This is given to show the difference in attitudes between the Poem by Horace and Owen's 'Dulce Et Decorum Est'.Irony is clear.
Call to the Youth
Let every Roman boy be taught to know Constraining hardship as a friend,and grow Strong in fierce warfare,with dread lance and horse Encountering the gallant Parthian foe. Aye,let him live beneath the open sky In danger,Him from leagured wallsshould eye Mother and daughter of the insurgent king, And she for he betrothed,with many a sigh,
Should pray,poor maiden,lest,when hosts engage, Unversed in arms he face that lion's rage So dangerous to trust what time he gluts His wrath upon the battle's blody stageeeee.
For country 'tis sweet and seemly thing To die.Death ceases not from following E'en runaways.Can youth with feeble knees, That fears to face the battle,scape his wing?
Defeat true meaningless can never know; Honoors undernished still it has to show. Not taking up or laying office down Because the fickle mob will have it so.
"Tis Maniness lifts men too good to die, And finds a way to that forbidden sky: Above the thronging multitudes,above The clinging mistsof earth it rises high.
Nor less abides to loyal secrecy A sure reward;I would not have him be Neath the same roof,the babbler who reveals Demeter's secret things,or launch with me
A shallop frail:The god of heav'n has blent Oft in one doom th' unclean and innocent: Seldom the miscreant his scaped the slow And sure pursuit of halting punishment. 3rd
WHAT 'DULCE ET DECORUM EST' TELLS
Wilfred Owen never glorifies war in his poetry.Heroism is wiped out from his poetry.His poems are anti-heroic.He displays the original battlefield.His pictorial description is enough to comprehend the underlying meaning and prophecy for establishment of Pacifism.He knows the true emotions,feeling and facts that that is usually shadowed by some aircooled poets who glorify war and warriors and deliver the message of destroying and being destroyed in war .But Owen knows the truth as he has direct experience of war.He thought war as the gigantic slaughter house for the youth who die before their death,before their maturity.They would have served the nation to the development of the country.But at an immature age they are being mercilessly slaughtered.The original picturisation is clear in Dulce Et Decorum Est.
The condition of the soldiers is miserable.They are like beggars declined double.They are fatigue. On the haunting flares they turn their backs and towards their distant rest they begin to trudge.Men marched as if they are asleep. Many soldiers have lost their boots but limp on.
'All went lame; all blind;Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.'
These are the conditions of the soldiers.How can they be able to fight in a serious battle field?Are they not frightened?Even in this situation someone declares Quick!
Here the poet describes the horrible scene where a soldier can not survive from the hand of devastating gas .He can not take precautionary steps . His death before the poet is really heart rendering. His suffocating,steady death makes the poet see nightmares.
Now he challenges the reader had they observed the experience,they would not pronounce the greatest false that Horace wrote in his poem -'Dulce et decoram est pro patria mori,
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.
Dulce Et Decorum Est begins with a miserable description of the soldiers. Soldiers have become 'bent double' not only for weariness and weakness but also for the pressure that has been given to them by the authority again and again and felt due to his own feeling of commitment.Then again he has gained some bitter experiences which have created a traffic jam to the free thinking of his mind.They are like supreme wretched 'beggars'-a communities of contempt .Owen might have thought of their begging for leaving the battlefield.They are begging their lives to the almighty God because war has made them handicapped.They with their present condition cannot survive by the fatal war.They carry sacks instead of armours and kartoos.They are wanting in sympathy.The fact that their knees are knocking each other proves their extreme wretched and fatigue condition.They are coughing like hags.They have not material within.War has extracted all out of them.'Men marched asleep' ,trudged .They can not walk properly.They are so tired that they are now machines which continue to move on mechanically.Loosing boots suggests the weariness and carelessness of the soldiers.Without boots the soldiers limped on.Sense organs have become medically weak.They have become lively dead persons. Thus this sharp and authentic description makes us alive on the war-front and watch the fatal,appalling scene which causes pity and sympathy.A humanitarian person ,after reading 'Dulce Et Decorum Est' must think thrice to go to the battle field.This is not only because he is frightened to go to war but he is employed to make a gigantic slaughter house in battle field of their opposition .
The alarming 'Gas! Gas! Quick,boys!' makes the exhausted soldiers active to save their lives.They must run for life.They must wear gas masks and helmets to save themselves. Those who can not take necessary precautions will stuff miserably or die.The poet experiences some cases .A soldier begins to froth at the mouth for the gas shells affect the lungs.'The white eyes writhing in his face' expresses the feeling that this place can only be Hell or Purgatory.The poet in this poem clearly says that the soldiers are not better than devils or else they have been entangled with the sin of the Devil. Here in this poem the poet has to unwillingly act as a prophet and warn his countrymen.Owen clearly sees the vile forces ,the prayer and exhortations,the exclamation and justification,religious and patriotic slogans
Move him into the sun—
Gently its touch awoke him once,
At home, whispering of fields unsown.
Always it woke him, even in France,
If anything might rouse him now
The kind old sun will know.
Think how it wakes the seeds—
Woke, once, the clays of a cold star.
Are limbs, so dear-achieved, are sides,
Full-nerved,—still warm—too hard to stir?
Was it for this the clay grew tall?
—O what made fatuous sunbeams toil
To break earth's sleep at all?
Meaning Of Some Words
once = at some period in the past
whispering of fields unsown = in past when the farmer soldier was in England ,the sunlight seemedto remind him his everyday agricultural duties.By the gentle touch of sunshine he used to go to the field.
this morning and this snow = this snowy morning
the kind old sun = the sun is old as it has been in the sky ages after ages.This sun is the cause for life on earth.A mattrial that creates life can only be kind.
woke once the clays of a cold star = sunbeams made the earth warm to the cold soil o the earth and made it suitable for living creatures.
cold star = earth
limbs =parts of the body
dear achieved =gained with loving care
fatuously = foolish
clay = lifeless body of the English soldier
Futility - Title and Subject
The word futility means uselessness or fruitlessness.This poem describes the death of a young English soldier.Sun ,the creator of the life of the young dead soldier can not restore his life .Sun,the creator of all living beings-plants and animals, is helpless to bring the life of the young English soldier back .The creation of life on earth seems to be futile.Inevitable,destructive war makes life futile on earth.According to Owen war is a fruitless industry where innumerable young soldiers are butchered mercilessly making a massacre mutually by both the warring parties.This industry has not any profit ,rather it makes only loss .The sense of futility is generalized for the sake of warning to the humanity. Each war in this world snatches away an innumerable promising soldiers meaninglessly for some trifle cause making the near and dear bereaved.Had been no life on earth, no grief would have been felt.Owen ,the creation of lives on earth seems to be futile.Sun has has worked ages after ages to create human lives .Thus the inappropriateness of creation of human lives on earth is clarified by this anti-heroic poem in the hands of atrocities of war.The Pacifist poet,as revealed in this poem, wanted total abolition of war.So he indirectly warns us by pictorial poem gained through direct experience in war the cruelty of war,the ruthless destructive result aftershock or aftermath of war.
The poet addresses his friends and asks one of them to bring the body of the dead soldier who has been killed in one of the battlefields of France in the World War I into the sunlight. The poet says so because the gentle touch of the sunshine used to wake him once at home in England to make him aware of his unsown field,and even in France.The sun is the only possible source of hope.If anything could rouse the dead soldier from his eternal sleep ,it is the sun.This sun not only wakes up man but also wakes the vegetation.A seed is germinated in the presence of air,water and sunshine.Without sunlight a plant can not be sprouted.The growth of trees and plants also depends on sunlight.Thus the whole creation of plants and animals is fully credited to benevolent sun.The poet is desperate to call the sun as only the magic power for which the dead soldier can get back its life.The dead youth grew into a strong and stout man with great care only for the power of the sun.He is dead now though his body is still warm.Can the sun bring its life back?
Why does the sun create life on earth?
The young man grows into a strong and stout man but why?
So Owen sorrowfully complains why the sun has taken the vast trouble to create life on earth ,if it is to be wiped out so casually in an inconsiderable manner.Here in this poem,Futility, the poet reveals the pity and sympathy for the immature wastage of the promising youth who could have lived longer enjoying life in this marvelous earth.But the war stops his further enjoyment.This is a universally accepted truth in case of meaningless killing of the youth.Thus the indignation of the poet is clear when he throws questions to the benevolent ,kind sun on the appropriateness of the creation of life on earth and the creation of this human universe.The hard drudgery of the sun prove to be futile when the poet sees the untimely death of his war-mate.If the well reared Soldier dies alike,then what is the value of creation in this earth.What is the value of Earth ?
Message of Owen in Futility
No other English soldier watched the terrible horror of war so deeply as Owen observed.He is able to convey the true feelings and pictures of war because he was a trench poet who had experienced the true sides of war field.So he never formed heroic or idealistic attitude toward war and warriors.War has a destructive evil power .In this poem,Futility, we are told of an English youth reared carefully to be a well built man(Are limbs,so dear -achieved,are sides,/Full nerved ) but ultimately meets his inevitable death in hands of destroying war.Here Here the the kind creator Sun is helpless.The malevolent war defeats the precious creation created by the benevolent Sun.Thus a hope is being mercilessly made futile in the name of a futile warfare.The pacifist Owen presents an original picture of the front.Now we are to take final decision what to do either continuing warfare as before or stop the throwing of ammunition immediately.As Owen foretells in this poem continuing war means destruction of lives ans making a slaughter house for the well built youths : stopping the bloody battle means the progress of civilization and letting the youth to enjoy full life span giving their valuable contribution to the humane society for the progress of this humanitarian civilization.
Some questions with answers on the FUTILITY that will help understanding the inner meaning .
1."Move him into the sun"- Who is to be moved into the sun? The young English soldier,just killed in war,is to be moved into the sun. 2. When did the soldier in the poem,Futility die? The soldier died in the early morning. 3. Where did the young soldier die? The young soldier died in a trench in the battlefield of France. 4. Describe the weather. It was a snowy morning. 5. What did the gentle touch of the sun remind the young soldier at home in the morning? The gentle touch of the sun used to wake him up to remind him of unsown field. 6. Where did the sun wake the soldier besides home? The sun used to wake up the young English soldier every morning even in France. 7.Till when did the sun wake him up? The sun woke the English soldier till the day before the morning of his death. 8."Think how it wakes the seeds-" It is the sun who wakes the seeds. 9.Who will know how to rouse the soldier even after his death? The alone will know. Why are dear achieved limbs and full nerved sides hard too stir? Death has petrified the well built body of the soldier. 10. What are called fatuous and why? The sun rays are called foolish,because they are unable to revive life that has been created by themselves.
(Though still we crouched by bluebells moon by moon)
And missed the tide of Lethe; yet are soon
For that new bridge that leaves old Styx half-spanned;
Nor ever unto Mecca caravanned;
Nor bugled Asgard, skilled in magic rune;
Nor yearned for far Nirvana, the sweet swoon,
And from high Paradise are cursed and banned;
-Let's die home, ferry across the Channel! Thus
Shall we live gods there. Death shall be no sev'rance.
Weary cathedrals light new shrines for us.
To us, rough knees of boys shall ache with rev'rence.
Are not girls' breasts a clear, strong Acropole?
-There our oun mothers' tears shall heal us whole.
Mythological Terms
New Heaven - 'The new heaven and the new earth will not be separate from each other; the earth of the saints, their glorified, bodies, will be heavenly. The old world, with all its troubles and tumults, will have passed away.'
Lethe - It literally means oblivion or forgetfulness.It refers to the river of forgetfulness,one of the five rivers in Hades .It causes forgetfulness of the past in those who drink of it.
Styx - It literally means hate or detestation.It refer to the river across which the souls of the dead are ferried by Charon ,one of the five rivers in Hades.This Egyptian word is a substitute for ferryman
Reference
Five rivers in Hades
1.Acheron - the river of woe
2. Cocytus - the river of lamentation
Lethe - the river of oblivion
Phlegethon - the river of fire
Styx - the river of hate
Mecca - It refers to a city of western Saudi Arabia near the coast of the Red Sea. This is the birth place of Mohammad.It is an honest city of Islam and a pilgrimage site for all devout believers of the faith.
Asgard - This refers to the city of the Norse gods(Aesir) and slain heroes of war in Norway.
Nirbana - In Buddhism it refers to the final release from the cycle of reincarnation attained by extinction of all desires and individual existence ,culminating (in Buddhism) in absolute blessedness ; or (in Hinduism ) in absorption into Brahman.
The ineffable ultimate in which one has attained disinterested wisdom and compassion.
In Hinduism it refers to Emancipation from ignorance and extinction of all attachments.
It refers to an ideal state of rest ,harmony ,stability and joy.
Paradise -Eden Garden/Heaven/the Abode of righteous souls after death/an intermediate resting place for righteous souls awaiting the Resurrection
other words
fairyland - an imaginary world of the fairies
gay - happy
crouched - stooped,especially with the knees bent
bluebell - flower/ harebell / European liliaceous woodland plant,Hyancinthoides(or Endimion) non scripta ,having a one-sided cluster of blue bell shaped flowers/any numerous plants of the bell flower family ,having blue ,bell shaped flowers as the harebell
spanned - the section between two inter mediate supports of a bridge/the breadth/the extent /a measure of space between two points or extremities ,as of a bridge or roof
caravanned - a brit to travel or have a holiday in a caravan
caravan-a number of people traveling together
rune - a similar character in another alphabet ,sometimes believed to have magic powers /a poem or incantation or mysterious significance especially a magic charm.
Runes were employed in casting spells ,as to gain a kiss from a sweetheart or to make an enemy's gut burst......
swoon - a state of ecstasy or rapture
curse - blaspheme/afflict/excommunicate/swear profanely
banned - prohibited ,especially by official decree
ferry - transport(people,vehicle or goods) by boat across a body of water /cross by boat
Channel - narrow arm of the Atlantic Ocean separating the Southern Coast of England from the Northern Coast of France and tapering Eastward to its junction with the North Sea at the strait of Dover.It means communication.severance - partition/separation/breaking off
reverence - a feeling of profound awe and respect and often love /veneration/an act of showing respect ,especially /a bow of curtsy
shrine - a place of religious devotion or commemoration such as a place where devotions paid to a deity or deities.
Acropole - a raised area holding a building ,a cluster of buildings ,especially in a pre-columbian city.
title
'The new heaven and the new earth will not be separate from each other; the earth of the saints, their glorified, bodies, will be heavenly. The old world, with all its troubles and tumults, will have passed away.'
Revelation 21 echoes these lines.But here in Owen's sonnet the title is a strict irony.Here we see the soldiers are wondering .They are not permitted to enter into the conventional heaven.Instead they are compelled to enter into a new heaven(hell) that is suitable for the soldiers who have been engaged in ruthless inhumanity in killing human lives .
