By Wilfred Owen(1893 – 1918)
Published Posthumously in 1920.
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.
Latin phrase is from the
Roman poet Horace: “It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country.”
