poetry lamenting war #1

[truepenny]

yonmei did it first.

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 or bells,
 Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,--
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
 And bugles calling for them from sad shrines.

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 (KIA November 4, 1918), Poems, 1920

The Collected Poems of Wilfred Owen. Ed., Introd., Notes C. Day Lewis. New York: New Directions, 1964.

Links:
WOMDA (the Wilfred Owen Multimedia Digital Archive)
The Wilfred Owen Association
Short biography of Wilfred Owen, plus the text of "Anthem for Doomed Youth" and "Dulce et Decorum Est"