Walt Whitman
Member
- Joined
- Jan 4, 2012
- Member Type
- English Teacher
- Native Language
- Italian
- Home Country
- Italy
- Current Location
- Italy
English teacher
I’m fully aware it’s an oversimplification
of two splendid poems, but I’d like my 13-year-old kids to ponder over the horrors of war. Could you please have a look at them? I need your input about my choice of language and vocabulary.
We look like old beggars under sacks,
We cough and curse as we slowly walk
Through the thick mud towards our distant camp.
We march asleep with shoes of blood,
Drunk with fatigue, deaf even to the loud sounds
Of gas shells falling behind us.
Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!
We put on our heavy gas masks just in time;
But someone is shouting and screaming,
moving arms and legs desperately like a man in fire or lime…
I see him drowning through his gas mask
And thick green light, as under a green sea.
I see his white eyes rolling around in great pain,
I see the blood coming out from his lungs
full of foam and destroyed by the gas.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He rushes towards me, guttering, choking, drowning.
My friend, do not go on telling children
The old lie: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.
(Wilfred Owen, “Dulce at decorum est”)
I knew a simple soldier boy;
He smiled at life full of joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And sang early with the lark.
In winter trenches, depressed and gloomy,
With exploding bombs and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.
You happy crowds with eyes full of passion,
You cheer when soldier boys march by;
Silently get home because you do not know
The hell where youth and laughter go.
(Siegfried Sassoon, “Suicide in the Trenches”)
Thanks a lot.
WW
I’m fully aware it’s an oversimplification
We look like old beggars under sacks,
We cough and curse as we slowly walk
Through the thick mud towards our distant camp.
We march asleep with shoes of blood,
Drunk with fatigue, deaf even to the loud sounds
Of gas shells falling behind us.
Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!
We put on our heavy gas masks just in time;
But someone is shouting and screaming,
moving arms and legs desperately like a man in fire or lime…
I see him drowning through his gas mask
And thick green light, as under a green sea.
I see his white eyes rolling around in great pain,
I see the blood coming out from his lungs
full of foam and destroyed by the gas.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He rushes towards me, guttering, choking, drowning.
My friend, do not go on telling children
The old lie: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.
(Wilfred Owen, “Dulce at decorum est”)
*************
I knew a simple soldier boy;
He smiled at life full of joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And sang early with the lark.
In winter trenches, depressed and gloomy,
With exploding bombs and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.
You happy crowds with eyes full of passion,
You cheer when soldier boys march by;
Silently get home because you do not know
The hell where youth and laughter go.
(Siegfried Sassoon, “Suicide in the Trenches”)
Thanks a lot.
WW