poem memorization

Stanza 1

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.

Stanza 2 (men)

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 disappointed shells that dropped behind.

Stanza 3 (gas)

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.

Stanza 4 (in)

In all my dreams before my helpless sight, he plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

Stanza 5 (if)

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.

Stanza 6 (my)

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.