[Acrylic-bob]

On Thursday I happened to be in the Reference Library when it came time to observe the Silence. There is in there an enormous photograph of The Pal's Battalion, taken in the Argyl Street Drill Hall, before they left Accrington, many of them, as we now know, for the last time. Looking at all those bright young faces staring down at me from the wall, I couldn't help thinking of the young men who are now posted to Iraq. And I remembered all the explanations that we have been fed over the past year to justify our participation in this war.
It astonished me to realise just how little we have learned from the sacrifices made for us ninety years ago. Oh certainly, the killing is now more efficient, clinical even. But people still die, mothers still grieve and politicians still lie.

In common with Wilfred Owen, I wonder if we can still say with such certainty; "Dulce et Decorum est, Pro Patria Mori"

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Wilfred Owen


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 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.