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 goodbyes.
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 had been an officer in the British Army during World War I. He had written this poem while on a medical leave, having had suffered from shell shock. Several months later, just a week before the end of the war, he was killed in action. By writing the few poems he had written, he outlived many men who have lived far longer than him.
I picked this poem not for the relevance of its details (after all, we're not in a war at this particular moment), but for its deep and touching humanity and love of life. Tonight, it is we that reside in the sad shires. The girls whose faces are white are our kin. It is our conundrum how to honor the legacy of the deceased.
Do not watch TV, nor listen to the radio. The wisdom is in your hearts.
Mood: elegiac
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