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.
The Latin title of this poem means:
"Sweet and fitting it is to die for one's country."
(From Horace, Odes, III. ii. 13)