Gassed
John Singer
Sargent -- American
painter
1918
Imperial War
Museum
Oil on canvas
Full painting
-- 231
x 611.1 cm (91 x 240 1/2
in.)
jpg: Art
and World War I
(click
on the
image to step
closer)
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
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.
--
Wilfred
Owen (1917)
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