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"Apologia Pro Poemate Meo" is a poem by Wilfred Owen. It deals with the atrocities of World War I. The title means "in defence of my poetry" and is often viewed as a rebuttal to a remark in Robert Graves' letter "for God's sake cheer up and write more optimistically - the war's not ended yet but a poet should have a spirit above wars."〔Wilfred Owen, ''Collected Letters'', edited by Harold Owen and John Bell - London, 1967.〕 Alternatively, the poem is seen as a possible response to "Apologia Pro Vita Sua". The poem describes some of the horrors of war and how this leads to a lack of emotion and a desensitisation to death. However the key message of the poem is revealed in the final two stanzas criticizing "you" at home (contemporary readers) for using war propaganda and images as a form of entertainment "These men are worth/ Your tears. You are not worth their merriment". The full poem is as follows: I, too, saw God through mud - :The mud that cracked on cheeks when wretches smiled. :War brought more glory to their eyes than blood, :And gave their laughs more glee than shakes a child. Merry it was to laugh there - :Where death becomes absurd and life absurder. :For power was on us as we slashed bones bare :Not to feel sickness or remorse of murder. I, too, have dropped off fear - :Behind the barrage, dead as my platoon, :And sailed my spirit surging, light and clear :Past the entanglement where hopes lay strewn; And witnessed exultation - :Faces that used to curse me, scowl for scowl, :Shine and lift up with passion of oblation, :Seraphic for an hour; though they were foul. I have made fellowships - :Untold of happy lovers in old song. :For love is not the binding of fair lips :With the soft silk of eyes that look and long, By Joy, whose ribbon slips, - :But wound with war's hard wire whose stakes are strong; :Bound with the bandage of the arm that drips; :Knit in the webbing of the rifle-thong. I have perceived much beauty :In the hoarse oaths that kept our courage straight; :Heard music in the silentness of duty; :Found peace where shell-storms spouted reddest spate. Nevertheless, except you share :With them in hell the sorrowful dark of hell, :Whose world is but the trembling of a flare, :And heaven but as the highway for a shell, You shall not hear their mirth: :You shall not come to think them well content :By any jest of mine. These men are worth :Your tears: You are not worth their merriment. ==References== 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Apologia Pro Poemate Meo」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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