DULCE ET DECORUM EST

Poetry\ Eng. 9

 

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  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 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

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 (1893-1918)

 

 

°Translated: It is sweet and decorous to die for one's country.