Dulce et Decorum Est
Wilfred Owen
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 gas-shells dropping
softly 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.
