Dulce et decorum est

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 tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped 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

The poem is about a day on the battlefields of World War I . As our speaker tells us, all the soldiers are mentally and physically damaged by the force of battle.

And then it gets worse. Just as the men are heading home for the night, gas shells drop behind them. The soldiers look for their gas masks in a desperate attempt to save their own lives. Unfortunately, they don't all get to their masks in time. The character watches as another soldier chokes and staggers in the toxic gas, he is unable to save him from that horrible death.
Then time passes and some time after the battle, the character can't get the sight of the dying soldier out of his head. That image haunts him, in his thoughts, in his dreams, in his poetry, and he can´t do anything to help the dying soldier. 
Bitterly, the speaker finally addresses the people at home who urge young English to fight for personal glory and honour for their country. He wonders how they can continue to call for war. It is because they haven´t witnessed the physical agony war creates or experienced the emotional trauma it causes. In the speaker's mind, there's noting glorious or honourable about death, or war itself.

Suicide in the trenches

SUICIDE IN THE TRENCHES

By Siegfried Sassoon

I knew a simple soldier boy 

Who grinned at life in empty joy, 

Slept soundly through the lonesome dark, 

And whistled early with the lark.

In winter trenches, cowed and glum, 

With crumps and lice and lack of rum, 

He put a bullet through his brain. 

No one spoke of him again.

You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye 

Who cheer when soldier lads march by, 

Sneak home and pray you'll never know 

The hell where youth and laughter go.

In this poem, Siegfried Sassoon emphasizes the precious life that is being wasted and forgotten in war. He creates the image of a young soldier boy, a normal boy with hopes and dreams, with an appreciation for life and peace - his world was not corrupted in any way. As the poem continues it contradicts this idea - as the boy commits suicide in the trenches. It comes to show just how horrifying the conditions must have been for a happy young man to do such a thing. War is so horrific that it has forced him to destroy his own life. There is a mention of how the boy is forgotten after he shoots himself, meaning nobody wants to be reminded of just how terrible war can effect people. In the final paragraph Sassoon mentions the shame people should feel for sending these content young men to war, totally destroying everything they are and ever will be. It transmits the message that people cannot imagine the horrors that war presents and don´t care about the precious life which is so carelessly destroyed. War is not meant to be glorified, but shamed. In terms of poetic techniques, the poet uses alliteration: "Slept soundly", rhyme: " i knew a simple soldier boy who grinned at life in empty joy" , very descriptive language: "With crumps and lice and lack of rum" and metaphors like: " The hell where youth and laughter go" when he compares war to hell.

Glory of Women

                                  Glory of Women 

You love us when we’re heroes, home on leave,
Or wounded in a mentionable place.
You worship decorations; you believe
That chivalry redeems the war’s disgrace.
You make us shells. You listen with delight,
By tales of dirt and danger fondly thrilled.
You crown our distant ardours while we fight,
And mourn our laurelled memories when we’re killed.
You can’t believe that British troops ‘retire’
When hell’s last horror breaks them, and they run,
Trampling the terrible corpses—blind with blood.
O German mother dreaming by the fire,
While you are knitting socks to send your son
His face is trodden deeper in the mud. This poem was written during World War I, in 1917, by a soldier named Siegfried Sasoon. It is about the ignorance of women about the horrors men are living while they are fighting in the war. It is an ironic and sarcastic poem as it compares the fantasy women think war is like, with the reality of death and suffering in the actual war.  Its structure has no stanzas, it is a sonet. It is described in the octect how british women honour the glory of soldiers who have won medals and have fought bravely, while in the sestet, the soldier resents them and breaks to them how terrible and treacherous war is really like. I think a powerful image in the poem is where it says "O German mother dreaming by the fire,     While you are knitting socks to send your son     His face is trodden deeper in the mud.", beacuse it gives a very shocking and real contrast, where peace an tranquility are altered by the image of death and violence. It had an impact because it supported the narrator as he described the poem in a bitter and sarcastic tone, which help emphasize his feelings of anger towards women for being so ignorant about war. This poem´s title, "Glory of Women" actually describes the irony of how women don´t know anything about war and yet they value heroism won by medals and deaths in famous battles. It is a poem made to express hatred towards women who will never experience the hell soldiers go through.