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 Decorum Est — Owen takes his title from an ode by the Roman poet Quintus Horatius Flaccus, known popularly today as Horace. The phrase translates as Sweet and fitting it is to die for one’s country (or more literally fatherland). The saying was well-known at the time of the Great War in England, and in other countries as well. You may remember that Kantorek, Paul’s teacher in All Quiet on the Western Front, quotes this line when encouraging Paul and his classmates to enlist. flares — incendiary shells launched in the air to illuminate the battlefield blood-shod — in other words, having lost their boots, they are effectively shod (a verb taken from shoe) in blood, which has caked and hardened on their feet Five-Nines — 5.9 cm artillery shells helmets — in the early days of gas warfare, what we call gas-masks were called helmets lime — also called quicklime, lime is calcium-oxide, a naturally occurring, highly alkaline, chalk-like mineral compound that is caustic to flesh. In fact, it was often sprinkled over corpses to quicken their decomposition, for example during an epidemic panes — the glass inserts in the gas masks that allowed one to see green —The gas being green indicates it is chlorine gas, or white star gas, a mixture of chlorine and phosgene guttering— Exactly what Owen meant by this word is unclear. He might be using it as a modification of guttural, which refers to sounds made at the back of the throat; someone who has a guttural voice sounds as if he is growling. Note that the word in this sense has a strong onomotopoeic quality to it. Guttering is also used as a verb or past participle to indicate a fire going out, as in a guttering candle. of — as a result of, from