"Dulce et Decorum Est" by Wilfred Owen
1 Dulce et Decorum Est
2 BY WILFRED OWEN
3
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
4
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
5
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
6
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
7
Men marched asleep.
Many had lost their boots,
8
But limped on, blood-shod.
All went lame; all blind;
9
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
10
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.
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Gas!
GAS!
Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling
12
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
13
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
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And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—
15
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
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As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
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In all my dreams before my helpless sight,
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He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
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If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
20
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
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And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
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His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
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If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
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Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
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Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
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Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
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My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
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To children ardent for some desperate glory,
29
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
30
Pro patria mori.
31 Notes:
32 Latin phrase is from the Roman poet Horace: “It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country.”
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