xi-4i I_ PLEO O’.) DuIce et Decorum Est’
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. 5 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 disappointed shells that dropped behind. Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!–An ecstasy of fumbling, 10 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. 13 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, 20 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,— 25 My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: Duke et decorum est Pro patria mori.
1917
- Part of a phrase from Horace (Roman poet and satirist, 65-68 BCE), quoted in full in last lines of Owen’s poem: “It is sweet and proper to die for one’s country” (Latin).
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