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What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
- Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, -
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.
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Wilfred Owen
Born in Oswestry, Shropshire, his first passions arose for botany and poetry.
Later, he met worldly Siegfried Sassoon; both were soldiers admitted to
Craiglockhart Hospital, Edinburgh, Owen with shell-shock. While convalescing,
he composed the matchless "Anthem for Doomed Youth", symbolising frightful
ghastliness and monstrousness of war.
November the Fourth passed by; he fell, shot. As his mother and her husband
learnt the news, local bells gleefully pealed on, resplendently fanfaring the
Armistice, rather than tolling, lamenting the loss of their brilliant, talented
young son.
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