2. Stanza 1 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.
3. Stanza 2 Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling, Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time; But someone still was yelling out and stumbling, And floundringlike a man in fire or lime. . . Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light, As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
4. Stanza 3 In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
5. Stanza 4 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 ardentforsome desperate glory, The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum estPro patria mori
6. Wilfred Owen Wilfred Owen (18 March 1893 – 4 November 1918) was a British poet and soldier, one of the leading poets of the First World War. His shocking, realistic war poetry on the horrors of trenches and gas warfare was heavily influenced by his friend Siegfried Sassoon and sat in stark contrast to both the public perception of war at the time, and to the confidently patriotic verse written earlier by war poets such as Rupert Brooke. Some of his best-known works most of which were published posthumously include "Dulce et Decorum Est", "Insensibility", "Anthem for Doomed Youth", "Futility" and "Strange Meeting". His preface intended for a book of poems to be published in 1919 contains numerous well-known phrases, especially "War, and the pity of War", and "the Poetry is in the pity". He was killed in action at the Battle of the Sambre a week before the war ended. The telegram from the War Office announcing his death was delivered to his mother's home as her town's church bells were ringing in celebration of the Armistice when the war ended.
