On The Western Front

BY ALFRED NOYES (1916)

I found a dreadful acre of the dead,
Marked with the only sign on earth that saves.
The wings of death were hurrying overhead,
The loose earth shook on those unquiet graves;
For the deep gun-pits, with quick stabs of flame,
Made their own thunders of the sunlit air;
Yet, as I read the crosses, name by name,
Rank after rank, it seemed that peace was there;
Sunlight and peace, a peace too deep for thought,
The peace of tides that underlie our strife,
The peace with which the moving heavens are fraught,
The peace that is our everlasting life.
The loose earth shook. The very hills were stirred.
The silence of the dead was all I heard.
II
We, who lie here, have nothing more to pray.
To all your praises we are deaf and blind.
We may not ever know if you betray
Our hope, to make earth better for mankind.
Only our silence, in the night, shall grow
More silent, as the stars grow in the sky;
And, while you deck our graves, you shall not know
How many scornful legions pass you by.
For we have heard you say (when we were living)
That some small dream of good would cost too much.
But when the foe struck, we have watched you giving,
And seen you move the mountains with one touch.
What can be done, we know. But, have no fear!
If you fail now, we shall not see or hear.
Questions:
Tell me one thing about Alfred Noyes? Was he a soldier?
Rephrase this passage: (Re-tell it in your own words.)

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We, who lie here, have nothing more to pray.

To all your praises we are deaf and blind.
We may not ever know if you betray
Our hope, to make earth better for mankind.
DULCE ET DECORUM EST(1)
Wilfred Owen
Thought to have been written between 8 October 1917 and
March, 1918
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares(2) we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest(3) 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(4)
Of tired, outstripped(5) Five-Nines(6) that dropped behind.
Gas!(7) Gas! Quick, boys! An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets(8) just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime(9) . . .
Dim, through the misty panes(10) 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,(11) 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(12)
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest(13)
To children ardent(14) for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.(15)

Questions: (By the way, this is one of my favourite poems.)

In this poem, men are walking back to safety from the front lines. While
they are trudging along, something happens and they quickly try and put
on gas masks.
When the poem talks about a man drowning, what phrases does the writer
use to draw a picture of the mans agony?
What is the man drowning in? The writer talks about looking through thick
green panes of glass. What is he wearing that he has to look through to
see the man who is drowning/suffering?
Tell me something interesting about Wilfred Owen. Was he a soldier?

Here dead we lie, by A. E. Housman

Here dead we lie
Because we did not choose
To live and shame the land
From which we sprung.
Life, to be sure,
Is nothing much to lose,
But young men think it is,
And we were young.
Questions:
Is he mad about dying young or okay with giving his life for his country?
Life isnt much, except to the young but I am young. What do you think
this means?
Tell me one thing about A. E. Housman. Was he a soldier?

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