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lyrics

Bent down, 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
But limped on, blood‐shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas shells dropping softly behind.

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.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
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;
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 To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

credits

from Symphony No. 4 .​.​. War and Peace (2001) .​.​. live performance, released July 15, 2020

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Thomas Oboe Lee Cambridge, Massachusetts

Thomas Oboe Lee was born in China in 1945. He lived in São Paulo, Brazil, for six years before coming to the United States in 1966. After graduating from the University of Pittsburgh, he studied composition at the New England Conservatory and Harvard University. He has been a member of the music faculty at Boston College since 1990. ... more

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