Dulce Et Decorum

Line 1-2
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
  * The soldiers in this poem are crippled, mentally and physically overcome by the weight of their experiences in war
  * Did you notice how unwilling our speaks seems to introduce himself (and his fellow soldiers)? We’re almost all the way through the second line before we (the readers) hear who “we” (the subjects of the poem) actually are.
  * In fact, we get simile upon simile before we are acquainted with the subjects of this poem.
  * We hear that they’re “like old beggars” and “like hags.”
  * The speakers searching for images that his reader can understand, as if he’s convinced that none of his readers will be able to understand how horribly twisted and deformed the bodies of the soldiers have become

Line 3-4
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge
-The battle’s about to end for the day
-The soldiers turn away from the lights and noise of war and head back in the direction of their camp
-There’s an oh-so-subtle irony in the reference to the soldiers “distant rest”
-Sure, he could be talking about the barracks to which we guess that they’re headed
-Then again, they’re soldiers in a war that wiped out over nine million men. Nine million.
-The “distant rest” to which our soldiers are heading may just be death
-Trudging through the sludge is a pretty decent description of the trench warefare that became the battle plan for much of the First World War

Line 5
Men marched asleep
  * Zombies
  * Owen’s option for concise realism here: there’s no need to fancy up the language of them poem...