Poem Annotations

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

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

- Kinaesthetic and visual imagery can be seen in this line that I have represented

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 disappointed shells that dropped behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,

- In this line Owen uses Auditory imagery to produce a state of shock and panic

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.

-Visual imagery is used in these lines to detail the environment and conditions that the soldiers were in

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

- In this line there is once again kinaesthetic imagery used to describe the persons suffering. Organic imagery is also used to express the man's suffering

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,--

This sectin of stanza 4 consist of Auditory "If you could hear", Visual 'Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs", and gustatory "Bitter as the cud" imagery.

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.

-The last three lines of the poem are based on Organic Imagery as they are the thoughts of the poet on the truth of war.