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Wilfred Owen (1893-1918 / Shropshire / England)
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Poems by Wilfred Owen : 8 / 80
Anthem For Doomed Youth
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.
Wilfred Owen
Submitted: Tuesday, December 31, 2002
Edited: Thursday, June 30, 2011
Read poems about / on: anger, sad, flower, girl
Poems by Wilfred Owen : 8 / 80
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An antidote to the glorification of war in the world today. Owen saw and suffered the futility and debasement of the human being; the loss of a generation and yet they are still at it. Anthem for doomed Youth brings the images and hopelessness of wholesale random death instantly to the minds eye.
The stupidity of war. And the sadness of it. So so sad
I see it as the young soldiers' resignation to their fate.
beautiful piece where it seems to me that Wilfred sees the fallen ones battlefield memorials (as such) are no more fitting and expected than the ones at home, of choirs and bugles...it seems he is saying it is all so un-natural....the last two lines just seem so accepting
Maybe you have to miss dying by a few foot-pounds of impact force to write something like this. The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall... and shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells - singular extensions to the language. Worthy of Homer.
Dec16,2010
I never knew about this young poet: “Wilfred Owen”
His stanzas drizzle from bleeding heaven of WWI.
But I know about Armenian Genocide
Our pains and tragedies
That still stays unrecognized
By British and United States-
Those democratic parliaments seem civilized
In many eyes but never Ours!
Count the days passed...!
I call Wilfred Owen
The John Keats who wanted to silence wars
If he was alive... probably could forced the British
To recognize the Armenian Genocide
'One man can do many things in life
more than selfish many'
Sylva
This poem had an 8.5 rating among readers here-this is the poet who also penned the incredible Dulce et Decorum...how does a poem as powerful and well crafted as this get an 8.5 when I have seen lots of pablum about 'love' written by unknowns get a 10? ? Beats the heck out of me.
I read this sonnet of Wilfred Owen in anthology of war poets (WW-I) a little over fifty years ago. I have never forgotten the last verse, 'And each slow dusk a drawing-down of the blinds.' It is rare to see a poem having such a fitting closure. In his early death the English poetry quite probably lost a Keats.
Those youths did not die for world peace - they died in vein.
The death of all on all sides is to be regretted and mourned.
WW1 was a sad and pointless global mistake.
Very well depicts the fate of youths dying in the war! It was indeed very sad to think about those youths who died for the world peace in WWI!