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Dulce Et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen (Read by Christopher Eccleston)

By November 3, 2017Poetry, Video

Wilfred Edward Salter Owen (18th March 1893 – 4th November 1918) was an English poet and soldier and one of the most well known poets of the First World War. He spoke of the horrors of trenches and gas warfare, bringing his experiences to life, in stark contrast to the popular propaganda of the ‘Glorious War’ spreading around at the time.

Owen was killed in action on 4th November 1918 during the crossing of the Sambre-Oise Canal exactly one week (almost to the hour) before the signing of the Armistice which ended the war. Because of his death, much of his work was published posthumously.

Today we’re featuring one of his best known works, Dulce Et Decorum Est, read by Christopher Eccleston:

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 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 gas-shells dropping softly 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 devil’s sick of sin,
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
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.



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