The following poem was published in “Punch” magazine on 26th January 1916. I wonder whether Wilfred Owen read this poem?
Wilfred joined the Artists’ Rifles Regiment in October 1915 and in January 1916, he had a week’s home leave after training with the Regiment at Gidea Park in Essex. From 27th February until 5th March 1916, he attended a course in London and stayed in a room above The Poetry Bookshop, having met Harold Munro in October 1915.
“Dulce et Decorum” by Geraldine May Robertson-Glasgow
O young and brave, it is not sweet to die,
To fall and leave no record of the race,
A little dust trod by the passers-by,
Swift feet that press your lonely resting-place ;
Your dreams unfinished, and your song unheard —
Who wronged your youth by such a careless word
All life was sweet — veiled mystery in its smile ;
High in your hands you held the brimming cup ;
Love waited at your bidding for a while.
Not yet the time to take its challenge up ;
Across the sunshine came no faintest breath
To whisper of the tragedy of death.
And then, beneath the soft and shining blue,
Faintly you heard the drum's insistent beat ;
The echo of its urgent note you knew.
The shaken earth that told of marching feet ; l
With quickened breath you heard your country's call.
And from your hands you let the goblet fall.
You snatched the sword, and answered as you went,
For fear your eager feet should be outrun,
And with the flame of your bright youth unspent
Went shouting up the pathway to the sun.
O valiant dead, take comfort where you lie.
So sweet to live ? Magnificent to die !
Mrs. Robertson Glasgow. Jan. 26, 1916. pp.209 – 210 “Poems from Punch 1909 – 1920” (Macmillan & Co. Ltd., London, 1922).
According to Jon Stallworthy, Wilfred began writing his poem with the same title in October 1917, while he was a patient in hospital at Craiglockhart, where he met Siefried Sassoon.
“Dulce et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen
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.
“The Poems of Wilfred Owen” Edited by Jon Stallworthy (Chatto & Windus, London, 2000) p. xiv and pp.117 - 118
Geraldine May Butt was born in 1854 in Winchester, Hampshire, the daughter of Lt.-Col. Thomas Bromhead Butt, (1821 - 1877), a British Army Officer, and his wife, Geraldine May, nee Sewell (1830 – 1898), who was from Quebec in Canada. Geraldine’s elder sister was Beatrice May Butt and together they went on to become successful authors, also publishing works under their married names. Geraldine also wrote for “The Monthly Packet” and “Punch” magazines. In 1878, Geraldine married Col. John Campbell Robertson-Glasgow in London. The couple had six children. She died in 1920.
Geraldine’s WW1 poetry collection was entitled “Poems of the Great War”, Printed in Frome: St Aldhelm’s Home for Boys, 1919 and her poems were included in six WW1 anthologies.
