Owen+&+Sassoon

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 5 But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.
 * Wilfred Owen, “Dulce Et Decorum Est”**

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling, Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time; 10 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, 15 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; 20 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 25 To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: //Dulce et decorum est// //Pro patria mori.// Groping along the tunnel step by step, He winked his prying torch with patching glare From side to side, and sniffed the unwholesome air. Tins, bottles, boxes, shapes too vague to know,- A mirror smashed, the mattress from a bed; And he, exploring, fifty feet below The rose gloom of battle overhead Tripping, he grabbed the wall; saw some one lie Humped and asleep, half-hidden by a rug; And stooped to give the sleeper's arm a tug. "I'm looking for Headquarters." No reply.... "God blast your neck" (for days //he'd// had no sleep), "Get up and guide me through this stinking place." Then, with a savage kick at the silent heap, He flashed his beam across a livid face Horribly glaring up; and the eyes yet wore Agony dying hard ten days before; And twisted fingers clutched a blackening wound. Alone, he staggered on until he found Dawn's ghost, that filtered down a shafted stair To the dazed, muttering creatures underground, Who hear the boom of shells in muffled sound. At last, with sweat of horror in his hair, He climbed through darkness to the twilight air, Unloading hell behind him, step by step.
 * Siegfried Sassoon, “The Rear-Guard”**