Oxymorons, figures of speech that put together two opposing words, often create paradoxes with just a few words.
In the second stanza of Wilfred Owen's "Dolce et Decorum Est," the oxymoron is in the first line of the stanza, line 9, as Owen describes the terrible gas that the Germans used against the Allied Troops in World War I:
Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!--an ecstasy of fumbling [...]
Certainly, the word ecstasy has a positive denotation of joyous excitement that opposes the idea of putting on gas masks to protect oneself from poisonous fumes. However, the word fumbling carries with it negative connotations and denotations since it means to use the hands in a clumsy or groping manner. Thus, a paradox is created.
In the last stanza of this poem, the oxymoron is line 26:
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The meaning of desperate carries with it a negative denotation: reckless from despair or a sense of hopelessness. The word glory, on the other hand, is positive as it means exalted praise, or honor. This creates another paradox.
The apparent contradiction occurs as Owen implies that only someone desperate to be called a war hero would want to go to a war in which he would be subjected to the hideous pain and conditions as given in the description of the young man who could not get his gas mask on in time. Indeed, as the others watch the pitiful soldier thrown into a wagon with other dead soldiers, they realize only too well the meaning of the "old Lie," Dulce et decorum est.
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