Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,

Till on the haunting flares we turned out 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

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--

The poem is composed of four stanzas that are of varying lengths. Its rhyming pattern is "abab" etc... An interesting observation however, to this otherwise basically structured poem, is the break between stanzas two and three. The second stanza has six lines and the third has two. The two lines of the third stanza not only rhyme with the last two of the second stanza, they actually follow on and complete the idea of it. That said, it might be that the poet was trying to emphasise the loss of the young soldiers life by lowering the two lines to symbolise his drowning.

The poem Dulce et Decorum est by Wilfred Owen is about the horror and the demise of the young soldiers in World War One. Owen uses many graphic images to portray to the reader how disgusting and horrific war can be, and what it is capable of. The general theme is pounded into the readers' head throughout the entire poem as an horrific waste of life. He then sums up this theme by calling the phrase "Dulce et Decorum est pro patria mori", meaning "It is good and proper to die for one's homeland", a lie.

The tone of the poem is ominous, as i

Some common words found in the essay are:
War Owen, GAS Quick, Owen Bent, Wilfred Owen, Lie Dulce, Wilfred Owen's, dulce et decorum, et decorum est, dulce et, decorum est, et decorum, decorum est wilfred, est wilfred owen, est wilfred, wilfred owen, lines third, pro patria, patria mori, est pro, est pro patria, choking drowning,
Approximate Word count = 749
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)