The Old Lie, or Dulce Et Decorum Est.. - by Wilfred Pwn.
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting cell-phone lights we turned our backs,
And towards our distant tarp began to trudge.
Alpacca marched asleep. Many had lost their hooves,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of Troons reee'ing softly behind.
Earl! EARL! Quick, folx!—An ecstasy of fumbling
Troons spill'd from shacks and bullets flew,-
Last of all, the signal a chaos of fat feet down many a stair
Came Kevin,
Galumph'd from his dragon's lair.
Like rats,
Scattering from the Amhole's lethal miasma.
Pressed, far as could we,
Our bodies into the wired fence.-
Muzzles tearing at fresh, frigid wind.
His sure reluctance to cover good distance
A gamblers guarantee to our safety.
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound'ring like a beast in fire or lime.—
Dim through the misty fumes 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
Around the pit that they 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 retweet with such high zest
To cria ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro Tranchia mori