Anthem for Doomed Youth

[jsburbidge]

 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 goodbyes.

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.

- Wilfred Owen

Comments

[graydon]

I am reminded that they did, after the Great War, do their best to hold a funeral observance with military honours for all the dead. It took many years.

[jsburbidge]

"Anthem for Doomed Youth" was set to music as part of Britten's War Requiem, which served something of the same symbolic purpose for World War II, especially at its first performance at Coventry Cathedral.