<span style="color:#323232;">Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
</span><span style="color:#323232;">And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">In all my dreams before my helpless sight,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
</span><span style="color:#323232;">If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
</span><span style="color:#323232;">My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
</span><span style="color:#323232;">To children ardent for some desperate glory,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Pro patria mori.```
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