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 floundering 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 wnthing 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.
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.
Wilfred Owen
index > about >
poetry > Dulce et
Decorum Est
