Anthem for Doomed Youth by Wilfred Owen
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.
Owen, born on 18th March 1893 in Oswestry, Shropshire, England, died 4th November 1918 whilst attempting to lead his men across the Sambre canal at Ors. He was just 25 years old.
As a very young man he had spent a year as a lay assistant to the Revd Herbert at Dunsden, after this he travelled to Bordeaux, France, and Owen became increasingly aware of the war raging across Europe, he returned to England in September 1915 with the intent of enlisting. In January 1917 he was posted to France and saw his first action in which he and his men, somehow, and against all odds, managed to hold a flooded dug-out in no-man's land for fifty hours whilst under heavy bombardment. In March he was injured and suffered concussion but returned to the front-line in April. In May he was caught in the middle of a shell-explosion and when his battalion was eventually relieved, he was diagnosed as having shell-shock. He was returned to the UK and on June 26th he arrived at Craiglockhart, War Hospital near Edinburgh. Here he met a man by the name of Siegfied Sassoon, a fellow poet who encouraged him to develop his poetry and introduced him into literary circles. The period in Craiglockhart, and the early part of 1918, was a creative period for him. He wrote much of the poetry he is remembered for today during that period.
In June 1918 he rejoined his regiment at Scarborough and then in August he returned to France. He was awarded the Military Cross for bravery at Amiens, but was killed on the 4th November whilst attempting to lead his men across the Sambre canal at Ors. The news of his death reached his parents on November 11th 1918, the day of the armistice. He was 25.
