DULCE ET DECORUM EST
By 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 tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped 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. 

(Owen was invalided home from France in 1917 
after 14 months in combat. He returned to the 
Western Front, ultimately commanding a rifle company. 
While endeavouring to get his men across the Sambre
 Canal, he was killed at the age of 25, one week before 
The Great War ended in November 1918. The title is 
from Horace, and translates "It is sweet and proper 
to die for the homeland). 

WILFRED OWEN

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