On reading of another Canadian killed in combat I thought of Anthem for Doomed Youth (1917)

Wilfred Owen was born in Oswestry, Shropshire and went on to work as a lay assistant to the vicar of Dunsden in 1913.

In 1915, he enlisted in the Artists' Rifles and served at the Somme that winter. Suffering from shell shock, he was sent to recover in Edinburgh where he met and was encouraged by Siegfried Sassoon. Most of his best poetry was written and polished during his convalescence there.

His shocking, realistic war poetry on the horrors of trenches and gas warfare was heavily influenced by Sassoon. Following recovery he returned to the front, having spurned the offer of a home-based training position, and was killed one week before the end of the war at the age of twenty-five. One month before he died Owen was awarded the Military Cross.

Anthem for Doomed Youth (1917)



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 for them from 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 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 silent maids,

And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.