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I dream of a collaboration that will become so complete that, often, the poet will think as musician and the musician as poet, so that the work resulting from this union will not be the random conclusion of a series of approximations and concessions, but the harmonious synthesis of two aspects of the same thought.—Arthur Honneger (1892-1955)

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DULCE ET DECORUM EST

By Wilfred Owen

 

This is one of the most famous anti-war poems ever written. The Latin title means: "Sweet and fitting it is to die for one's country." (From Horace, Odes, III. ii. 13)

 

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned out 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
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 (1893-1918)
poet, patriot, solider, pacifist

"My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity."

 

Wilfred Owen, one of approximately 9,000,000 fatalities in World War I, was killed in action on the Sambre Canal just seven days before the Armistice on November 4, 1918. He was caught in a German machine gun blast and killed. He was twenty-five years old.

WAR
Barrett Strong

 

War
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
War
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
War is something that I despise
For it means destruction of innocent lives
For it means tears in thousands of mothers' eyes
When their sons go out to fight to give their lives

War
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Say it again
War
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing

War
It's nothing but a heartbreaker
War
Friend only to the undertaker
War is the enemy of all mankind
The thought of war blows my mind
Handed down from generation to generation
Induction destruction
Who wants to die

War
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Say it again
War
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing

War has shattered many young men's dreams
Made them disabled bitter and mean

Life is too precious to be fighting wars
each day
War can't give life it can only take it away

War
It's nothing but a heartbreaker
War
Friend only to the undertaker
Peace love and understanding
There must be some place for these things today
They say we must fight to keep our freedom
But Lord there's gotta be a better way
That's better than
War

War
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Say it again
War
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing

Epitaph on a Tyrant

 

Perfection of a kind, was what he was after,

And the poetry he invented was easy to understand;

He knew human folly like the back of his hand,

And was greatly interested in armies and fleets;

When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter,

And when he cried the little children died in the streets.

 

W.H.Auden

“Peace begins with a smile.”

- Mother Teresa

 

“What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?”

- Mahatma Gandhi

 

“People say to me so often, "Jane how can you be so peaceful when everywhere around you people want books signed, people are asking these questions and yet you seem peaceful," and I always answer that it is the peace of the forest that I carry inside.” – Jane Goodall

 

“War doesn’t determine who’s right, it determines who’s left.”

- Eddie Vedder

 

"When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace"
- Jimi Hendrix

 

“Whoever destroys a single life is as guilty as though he had destroyed the entire world; and whoever rescues a single life earns as much merit as though he had rescued the entire world”

- The Talmud (Jewish Scripture)

 

“We bring to your thought and minds that right-minded human beings seek to promote above all else the life of all things. .. that peace is not merely the absence of war, but the constant effort to maintain harmonious existence between all peoples, from individual to individual, and between humans and the other beings of this planet...that this spiritual consciousness is the path to survival of humankind.” 

- The Haudenosaunee (Native American) Declaration

 

I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.

- Albert Einstein

The Poetic Heart

War & Peace

The Poetic Heart

The Poetic Heart is now  divided into different topics—Love & Friendship; Mysticism, Spirituality & Haiku; Animals & Nature; Miscellaneous, and War & Peace - containing poems, song lyrics, quotes and links to poet profiles.

 

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