Here Dead We Lie Comments

I like this. Either the speaker is the shade of a WW1 soldier or, since the dead no longer speak for themselves, the poem is a parody of war epitaphs. The dead speaker, from his perspective of eternity, would know life was a great deal to lose after all (especially since he was young) , and is speaking ironically. Or perhaps they are the words of a government-commissioned poet on the side of a tomb; but then the soldiers are made into liars, glorifying what killed them: 'Here dead we lie'.

death of young regretting tone of life!

He speaks for the young men who died in war and regretted losing their lives because they were young 'Life, to be sure, Is nothing much to lose, But young men think it is', . He is right about this.

I do not believe this comment holds any truth within its lines.

A wonderful poem about those who died in war.

poo poo poo poo poo

small lines and wonderful poem.Death is the subject.

It is a poem of its time. Was death for the greater good or a personal need to be a man? Interesting question.

An acceptance of tribal, ethnic or national devotion which overrides devotion to humanity. It is a poem of its time. When seen from our perspective, one senses that some of us see choosing life and embracing it may be a positive evolution.

Nice, from an academic who never went to war. The poem is pure posture, and full of empty bravado, though well phrased. Houseman would never have gone to ANY war. MM

Life without any good deed is like a dead and shameful to the land. Youth have so much to do and to ensure that they may say what about the youth. A provoking write.

In my own candid opinion, i'd say this is a great poem, two stanzas and explcit. In the first stanza he trys to tell us what it means to die with dignity, to die fighting with little hope for a cause.he prefares to die than 'shame the land' from which he sprung.this is real patriotism in the second stanza housman tries to explain a young man's view of life. Youth is a stage where young men think less before action...most times in the eyes of an exuberent youth, life is seen as 'nothing much to loose.. This is so true(have you withnessed university students on rampage before?) its never right to rate a poem low when you've not understood the subject matter from the writer's viewpoint.

great poet. nothing much to loss.

It's great poem because it's open to interpretation. The first line, taken literally, means the dead are not telling the truth about the ravages of war.If that first were to rhyme, it would be inversion; but it's not-its meaning is exact. To me, this poem protests war.

Outstanding poetry. The young soldiers preferred to die in the battle field than to bring disgrace to their country. They didn't want to come to their own country as losers. Excellent poem!

Few poems as short as this have caused as much controversy As Here Dead We Lie. Many attempts have beeen made to re-interpret it in the light of more 'modern' views of war but I think Houseman is indeed saying that it is preferable to accept the risk of death than the shame of cowardice and that the life of the individual is less significant than that of the good of the whole. This last position begs of course a huge question - how is the good of the whole determined? By the powers that be? Houseman could at times be quite depressive and there does seem to be a kind of death wish here. I don't see this as one of his better poems.

'Here Dead We Lie' The line stanziated as definite end However... I feel, might can still means, 'We lie, but still we are alive'.

the second stanza is somewhat saying that man is losing much about life... and it soppurted the idea that man did not die in his land-may signify his country, or the place where he was born(read last line) - and that is the much a person lost (which is presented in stanza two....

Early death is tragic, when one thinks of potentials lost.

This is second-rate poetry. The first line contains an unnecessary inversion – why not “Here we lie dead/Because…” Also in the first line: “here” and “lie” could be left out (we know the dead “lie” and we know they must lie somewhere, and where else do they “lie” if not “here”? 'We are dead because...' could have been the first line. The “to be sure” is smug – and there is nothing “sure” about life being nothing much to lose (Housman here tries to make his own jaundiced view of life a universal belief.) . Nor is it sure that young men think life is nothing much to lose.. Housman ignores all the positive reasons for which young men fought in WWI (and there were many) for the negative one of not wanting to 'live and shame the land...'.