Poem: Here dead we lie

Recently, I took an interest in the poems of the First World War, because these poems captures the emotions and the thoughts of the soldiers. Through many speeches and messages, I have heard the horrific memories of Chairman Man Hee Lee in his participation of the Korean War. I wanted to compare his messages with the literature that expresses the emotions of the author in the quickest way. Some wrote about their assault against their enemies, but some talked about the tragedy from the battle.

After a short research, I was able to find out that A. E. Housman, the British author of the poem "Here dead we lie", actually did not participated in the First World War. However, by reading his poem, I was able to find connection with the agony that the Chairman described, when he saw countless numbers of war happening around the world. The poem only contains two whole sentences, but through these well-phrased sentences the author, an academic who never went to war, shares his point of view of the war with his readers. I wonder what experience motivated him to write this poem, even though he never experienced war. It is interesting how one is able to depict the tragedy in the war without participating.

The rhyming scheme of the poem is ABCD EBFD and the poem is written in quatrain, in which each stanza contains four lines. In the first stanza, the author uses first person plural to represent the soldiers (the speaker) as a whole about their death. In one perspective, it seems that the speaker is slightly ashamed to be alive. And he did not wish to shame the land that we born into. It sounded like he is rather happy to accept his death. It is definitely heroic to die for one's nation. This is truly a great honor. However, what purpose did they serve? The First World War only started because of greed. Wars are fought by young men, who have a future ahead of them. They may participate in wars for many reason. Regardless of these reasons, they have to sacrifice their lives. It seems like a regret of the choice that they made. We need to still leave a space to question, was their sacrifice necessary? This is what the speaker questions in the second stanza. However, to support their nation's interest, they participated in the war to defend their nations.

The second stanza also begins with the pride in their sacrifice for their country and the patriotism that they showed. Ironically, the poem ends "But the young men think it is and we were young." The young men may think that their sacrifice is a glorious deed. There may be nothing important in life. However, after many years, when the young men grow to older men, they would look back to regret that decision. Youth is when action comes first before thinking. There is more in life. The young men, at the time, may have thought it would be cowardly to run away from their military duty as soldiers, but the older generation looked at something greater. It was not only the pride and the honor of that short period, but it was life as a whole. In their moment of reflection of their last years, one may think about many different things. Did war bring happiness through the pride and honor that he received? The answer may vary depending on the individual, but from the author's perspective, there was too much to lose for the heroic struggle.

What can we learn from their experience? One may ask, perhaps it was the experience of war that led them to reflect back about their experience. There could have been a different ending if one actually did not participate in the war and choose to live. We were able to see the emotions and the thoughts of our veterans through their memoirs and writing. However, were we able to see writings of those who chose not to participate in the war? Not exactly, because wars were consistent in life. In did not allow the opportunity to not participate in wars. I hope that with Heavenly Culture, World Peace, Restoration Life and Chairman Man Hee Lee, we will become that first generation that decided to not participate in war. Maybe 50 years later, we will see a poem, "Here we are alive:"

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