"Dulce et Decorum Est" Wilfred Owen Tonya Howe Transcription, correction, editorial commentary, and markup Students and Staff of the University of Virginia National Endowment for the Humanities Literature in Context
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Published by Literature in Context under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 Unported License Dulce et Decorum Est Wilfred Owen Poems London Chatto & Windus 1920 This edition has been transcribed for this Literature in Context edition from the Internet Archive's copy of the first edition. 15 English print single poem

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 Numbered divs used. Library of Congress Name Authority File Library of Congress Classification Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names Open Researcher and Contributor ID transcribed for Literature in Context edition POEMSBY WILFRED OWENWITH AN INTRODUCTION BYSIEGFRIED SASSOON LONDON CHATTO & WINDUS 1920
DULCE ET DECORUM EST BENT double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turns 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!β€”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.β€” 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 Bitten as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,β€” My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Owen is citing from the Odes of the Roman poet Horace: "It is sweet and proper to die for one's own country." Pro patria mori.