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9.4
/10
(124
votes)
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1 Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
2 Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
3 Till on the haunting flares we turned out backs,
4 And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
5 Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
6 But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind;
7 Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
8 Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.
9 Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!--An ecstasy of fumbling
10 Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
11 But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
12 And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime.--
13 Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
14 As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
15 In all my dreams before my helpless sight
16 He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
17 If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
18 Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
19 And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
20 His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin,
21 If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
22 Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs
23 Bitter as the cud
24 Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
25 My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
26 To children ardent for some desperate glory,
27 The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
28 Pro patria mori.
Wilfred Owen
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Read poems about / on: green, sick, children, friend, fire, lost, sea, light, child, dream
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Comments about this poem (Dulce et Decorum Est
by
Wilfred Owen
) |
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comments about this poem (Dulce et Decorum Est by
Wilfred Owen
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Kevin Straw
(7/16/2009 5:45:00 AM) |
The citation for Owen's Military Cross reads:
'For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty in the attack on the Fonsomme Line on October lst/2nd,1918. On the company commander becoming a casualty, he assumed command and showed fine leadership and resisted a heavy counter-attack. He personally manipulated a captured enemy machine gun from an isolated position and inflicted considerable losses on the enemy. Throughout he behaved most gallantly.'
Owen was not against war, he was against the conduct of World War I.
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Michelle Willis
(7/16/2008 6:04:00 PM) |
An amazing poem which conveys the horror of the personal experience of war for soldiers, and dispels any romantic notions of the glory of it.
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Michael Pruchnicki
(7/16/2008 4:43:00 PM) |
A magnificent poem by a man who knew what he wrote about, and despite the likes of Alexis and Archie, who never shouldered a weapon in defense of their homeland, Wilfred Owens suffered the consequences of men who came forward in a time of peril to stand and fight against a foe who threatened the very existence of their nation! All for what, Archie? So you can write along with Alexis about the pointlessness of war and the sacrifice of those men who stand ready at the most inconvenient of times to fight and die so you can expound about the cost of war!
Sit in your classrooms safe and far removed from the dangers that lie in the world outside the university and its domain!
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Alexis Ravenhill
(8/26/2007 9:49:00 PM) |
This kind of stuff should be making the top 20, what with relevance to pointless war and all, but nooooooooo :)
Remember learning this in English A level, watching my teacher begin to cry, half the class and I with her, as she read.
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Archie Langford
(7/16/2007 5:10:00 AM) |
it was 8th in The Nation`s Favourits Poems one cannot imagine
the sheer hell of it and all for what
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Andrew Mcewan
(4/1/2007 1:27:00 PM) |
Should read 'Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud' in line 23. An amazing poem
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James Taylor
(2/16/2007 3:17:00 PM) |
Never before have a read such a powerful piece of literature. If I could talk to anyone person that has passed away it would be Wilfred Owen.
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Brian Dorn
(7/23/2006 2:24:00 PM) |
A powerful message intensified by the morbid imagery of a soldiers final sufferable moments and the obscenities of war.
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Wilfred Owen
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