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.
- Wilfred Owen, 1920.
The name of the poem translates roughly from Latin to
"It is sweet and noble"; the concluding lines in the poem fill us in: "to die for one's country."