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SCMP Reporter

Anthem for Doomed Youth by Wilfred

Owen

What passing-bells for those 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 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 minds,

And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

The first world war

The poem is about the death of soldiers in the first world war which was fought from 1914 to 1918. In Britain, the war was portrayed as a glorious fight against evil, and young men were encouraged to join the army and become heroes. As the war progressed, it became clear that the reality was very different. Thousands were killed as the armies fired at each other from trenches dug in  muddy fields. Conditions were so bad that Owen refers to the soldiers as 'cattle'.

Wilfred Owen

Wilfred Owen joined the army in 1915. He was killed in battle just one week before the end of the war aged just 25. He wrote his poems about life in the trenches. He is remembered for his realistic portrayal of army life, his indignation at the suffering and his compassion for the ordinary soldier.

How does this poem work?

It is a sonnet.

A sonnet always has 14 lines. Each line has 10 syllables, sometimes with an 11th  unstressed syllable as well. The underlying rhythm (called the meter) is a regular beat of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable (called iambic pentameter.) The rhyme scheme separates the lines into groups of four called quatrains: ababcdcdefef. A couplet finishes the poem. This helps you to follow the meaning just as paragraphs help you to follow the meaning in a piece of prose.

How does the imagery work?

The poet makes extensive use of similes and metaphors.

Throughout the poem he is imagining a funeral service in a country church back in England. He uses some aspects of the battlefield to act as metaphors for the elements of the church service:

'Anthem': the whole poem is an 'anthem', a sort of hymn sung at the service.

'Passing-bells': the bells rung from the church tower at the start of the service. Here the sound of the guns is a metaphor for the sound of the bells ringing ('only the monstrous anger of the guns').

'Orisons': prayers. These become the 'stuttering rifles' rapid rattle'.

'The choirs': the only choir in this particular church is the sound of the 'wailing shells'. The singing  of a choir should comfort the people in the church.

On the battlefield, it is like a nightmare and the 'choir' of shells is 'shrill, demented' and 'wailing'.

'Candles': the only candles are the shine of tears in the eyes of the soldiers.

'Pall': the white sheet put over a coffin. Here the pall is seen as the pale whiteness of the foreheads of the girlfriends and wives left behind as they grieve  in a state of shock. The tender thoughts in their minds become a metaphor for the flowers at the funeral.

Now that you understand the thoughts of the poem, read it aloud to hear how the poet creates the sounds of the battle.

We will look at that in more detail later in the year.



Tragedy in the trenches