The title of the poem and the final lines allude to a passage from the ancient Roman poet Horace: “Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori,” or “It’s sweet and proper to die for your country.”
The text is from Wilfred Owen, Poems by Wilfred Owen (London: Chatto and Windus, 1921).
Dulce et Decorum Est |
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Wilfred Owen |
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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 tired, outstripped Five-Nines° that dropped behind. | caliber of shells | |
| Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—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.— | ||
| 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 with such high zest | ||
| To children ardent for some desperate glory, | ||
| The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est | ||
| Pro patria mori. |