Poetry+-+May+13


 * Dulce et Decorum Est**

//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 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.*

· It is sweet and right to die for one’s country.

Alexander Mitchell: This poem is quite confusing to me, but i figure it is about the war judging on the last line. The seems to be about a man watching another man's corpse being taken away. The man seemed to have died in a burning building or fire. One of the lines is a latin phrase, " Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori" (27-28). This phrase is the same as the last line of the poem. The tone of the poem is very said and almost mournful. The language in the poem is very complex, and is very eerie and descriptive.