Dulce Et Decorum Est

"Bent double, like beggars under old 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.   Gas! Gas!  Quick, boys! -- An ecstacy of fumbling, fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;   But someone still was yelling out and stumbling and floundering, 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."        (caps mine)


"Dulce Et Decorum Est" is a poem written by Wilfred Owen, 2 weeks before he was killed in combat during World War I.  It was published posthumously in 1920.  The Latin title, translated into English, means: "How sweet and becoming it is to die for one's country."