(Sweet and proper it is)

A poem by Wilfred Owen – this is one many of you may know.

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 toward 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 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
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile incurable sores on innocent tongues, —
My friend, you would not tell of such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory
The old lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori
(For your country, more)