So I’m sitting here writing a story whilst watching the Boondock Saints, and I was reminded of one of my favorite poems: “Dulce et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen.

Whenever I’m tutoring, or really doing pretty much anything, and a boy says he hates poetry, I always ask of him the inevitable “Why?” And he invariably answers, “It’s all girly stuff,” or some variation thereof. Whenever this situation occurs, “Dulce et Decorum Est” is the poem I pull out (and I did have it memorized for quite a while, but sadly don’t anymore). Here’s why:


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.*

* It is sweet and right to die for your country

While it is fairly obvious why a boy would enjoy this poem, what is perhaps interesting to note is they always understand the underlying message.