Dulce+et+Decorum+Est

Dulce et Decorum est by Wilfred Owen
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, outstriped 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 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 devils sick of sin; If you could hear, at every jolt the blood Come gargling froth-corrupted lungs Obscene as cancer, bitte 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.//

(//__Dulce et Decorum est Pro Patria Mori__// means //__it is sweet and right to die for ones country__//)

[|Dulce et Decorum Est-Review]
Wilfred Owen wrote this poem to shock and horrify the people “back at home”because the people “back at home” were beleiving the people recruiting young men for the war in that it was a good thing to do, and Wilfred Owen knew that they had no idea what they were letting themselves in for. In the first stanza(verse), he explains the horrible conditions with which they lived by explaining how evil the place is by using words like “limped on, blood shod” and “all went lame;all blind”. He also tells of the bombs falling behind them, how exhausted and ill the soldiers are and shows how heavy all their equipment is using phrases like “bent double” and “towards our distant rest began to trudge”. In the second stanza, there is gas coming towards them and all anyone has time to say is “Gas!Gas!Quick boys!” before everyone is “fumbling” to fit their gas masks on in time before the gas reaches them. He tells of a man who could not fit his gas mask on in time and how he was “yelling” out in pain and falling over like he was burning. In the third stanza Wilfred Owen talks about his nightmares of the man dying and how the chlorine gas is blistering the inside of the mans lungs and drowning him. In the fourth stanza he talks about the man being thrown in the wagon, how the mans eyes were blistering with chlorine gas, how the blood comes out of his drowning lungs and how, if you ever saw it you would not be telling others back at home that it is the right place to be. I think that Wilfred Owens’ purpose of the poem, to help the people back home to realise the horrors of war and how much people aren’t aware when they join up of what could happen to anyone in the war, has succeeded because since writing the poem nearly 100 years ago, it still shocks people of what actually happened during the war. >