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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
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.
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,
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.
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