Dulce et Decorum Est by Wilfried Owen

The bells of war are sounding louder again — and yet, have they ever really stopped?In this episode of Musical Poetry, we present Dulce et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen, one of the most powerful anti-war poems ever written.Owen wrote this poem during the First World War, after witnessing combat at close range. Before the war, he was a teacher and a poet. He was killed in action on 4 November 1918, just one week before the war ended. The poem was published after his death, in 1920.Its final line comes from an old Latin saying:“It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country.”Owen called this idea the old lie.This reading is offered in remembrance of those who suffer today — in Sudan, in Ukraine, and wherever the bells of war continue to sound.It is also a refusal to ask the young to give their lives for the comfort, possessions, or survival of the old.This is not a call to action.It is an act of witness.