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.
-----Original Message-----
From: Angel Stewart
Among the corrosive lies a nation at war tells itself is that the glory
-- the lofty goals announced beforehand, the victories, the liberation
of the oppressed -- belongs to the country as a whole; but the failure
-- the accidents, the uncounted civilian dead, the crimes and atrocities
-- is always exceptional. Noble goals flow naturally from a noble
people; the occasional act of barbarity is always the work of
individuals, unaccountable, confusing and indigestible to the national
conscience.
Outbound email scanned for viruses. (e232)
[Todays Threads] [This Message] [Subscription] [Fast Unsubscribe] [User Settings]
