The old Lie

I bought this commemorative Passchendaele 100 poppy from the Royal British Legion in 2017 in memory of my maternal grandfather, Charles Thomas Harris. It was made from a mix of British impact and shrapnel shell fuses gathered from the fields of Passchendaele.

On 2nd December 1917, at the age of 22, Charles suffered a severe shell gas wound at the third battle of Ypres (Passchendaele). As a result he was sent home from base hospital and underwent an operation to remove one of his lungs. He was one of the fortunate ones, though, because he survived long after the war was over, unlike Wilfred Owen, who was killed in action a week before the war ended at the age of 25.


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 gas-shells dropping softly 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*.

Wilfred Owen

*It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country.