They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
From Laurence Binyon's poem For the Fallen, written September 1914
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 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
Owen was killed at Ors, near the French Belgian border, on 4 November 1918, at the age of 25.
Owen was so gifted. It moves me to tears and it is so cutting. The opening line mocks Gray's "Elergy Written in a Country Churchyard."
ReplyDelete"The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,..."