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	5
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;	10
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,	15
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;	20
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	25
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
“Dulce et Decorm Est” — Owen takes his title from a famous ode by Horace (65-8 B.C.E.), a Roman poet in the time of the Emperor Augustus. The complete line, from the second ode in Book III of his odes, reads “Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori” (“Sweet and fitting it is to die for one’s country”). The line was well known at the time.
flares — illuminating shells with parachutes used to light the battlefield
Five-Nines — 5.9 inch (150 millimeter) German artillery
helmets — in this case, gas masks
lime — a calcium oxide compound that is caustic and was traditionally used to make corpses dissolve more quickly after burial; also called quicklime.