Poet of the Trenches

Anthem for Doomed Youth
an often quoted poem of the First World War (with explanatory notes)

ANTHEM₁ FOR DOOMED YOUTH

What passing-bells² for these who die as cattle?

Only the monstrous anger of the guns.

Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle

Can patter out³ their hasty orisons.⁴

No mockeries⁵ now for them; no prayers nor bells;

Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, –

The shrill, demented⁶choirs of wailing shells;

And bugles⁷ calling for them from sad shires.⁸

What candles⁹ 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 pallor¹⁰ of girls' brows shall be their pall;

Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,

And each slow dusk¹¹ a drawing-down of blinds.¹²

September - October, 1917

Notes for students

1 Anthem - perhaps best known in the expression "The National Anthem;" also, an important religious song (often expressing joy); here, perhaps, a solemn song of celebration

2 passing-bells - a bell tolled after someone's death to announce the death to the world

3 patter out - rapidly speak

4 orisons - prayers, here funeral prayers

5 mockeries - ceremonies which are insults. Here Owen seems to be suggesting that the Christian religion, with its loving God, can have nothing to do with the deaths of so many thousands of men

6 demented - raving mad

7 bugles - a bugle is played at military funerals (sounding the last post)

8 shires - English counties and countryside from which so many of the soldiers came

9 candles - church candles, or the candles lit in the room where a body lies in a coffin

10 pallor - paleness

11 dusk has a symbolic significance here

12 drawing-down of blinds - normally a preparation for night, but also, here, the tradition of drawing the blinds in a room where a dead person lies, as a sign to the world and as a mark of respect. The coming of night is like the drawing down of blinds.

http://www.warpoetry.co.uk/owen2.html