Anthem for Doomed Youth Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)
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 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.
First we consult a dictionary. “Anthem” – a rousing or uplifting song; “passing-bells” – funeral bells; “patter” – make a repeated light tapping sound; “orisons” – (archaic) prayers; “save” – (formal) except; “demented” – wild and irrational; “wailing” -- prolonged high-pitched cry of pain, grief or anger; “speed” (verb) – (archaic) make prosperous or successful; “pallor” – an unhealthy pale appearance; “pall” – a cloth spread over a coffin.
The fact that there are quite a number of difficult words suggests to the reader the poet is writing deliberately and formally. The situation seems to be that the speaker is watching some new young recruits going off to war and he thinks they have little chance of coming back. They are “doomed,” and he composes a song for them. “Anthem” suggests a rousing or uplifting song, but these youths most likely “die as cattle”. The comparison with cattle gives the suggestion of the slaughtering of animals. So there is a contradiction between “anthem” and “doomed”in the title. Similarly, there is a contradiction in the meaning of the word “choirs”. In line 6, we think it means church choirs, but in line 7, it is a terrible explosion of “wailing shells”. Some words have a religious overtone (colour): “prayers,” “bells,” “choirs,”“orison,” “candles,”“holy”. What is suggested? The parting soldiers are like martyrs being sacrificed. There are boys and girls mentioned in the second stanza, seeing the soldiers off and waiting for them at home.
When we examine the words in the first stanza, we notice right away that many words are sound words, violent sounds of guns, rifles and shells. The sounds in lines 2, 3 and 7 imitate the sense, here gunfire, a technique called onomatopoeia. The phrase in line 3 in particular, “stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle,” reproduces repeated firings of guns. “Shrill” and “wailing” are similarly used. The writer likes to repeat sounds to group senses together: “rapid rattle,” “shall shine,””sad shires”. The rhythm is strong, emphatic most of the way, lamenting, and the last line of each stanza slows down when stressed syllables come together (line 8 – v / v / v v / v / / and line 14 – v / / / v / v / v /), to express grief and hopelessness.
The stanza begins with a question, and a study of the sentence structure of the lines shows the pattern of Question? – Only … Only… No …, no …, Nor … (only) …and …. On the one hand, one expects departing soldiers to hear the sounds of blessings, prayers, bells and mourning. But they do not get these. Instead, they will soon hear the horrific sounds of war. When they die, their hometown will blow bugles to mourn for them. We could add some words to the second line to make the sense clearer. “(They can expect no proper funeral bells. They can expect) Only the monstrous anger of the guns ….” And we can consider the last but one line to mean something like “The tenderness of patient minds (on the part of the girls shall be) their flowers (for the soldiers)”.
The second stanza also begins with a question; the two stanzas are parallel in construction. The soldiers do not get what one can expect due to them. The boys and girls come out to see the soldiers off, but they do not have candles burning to show well wishes. Instead, the boys look on admiringly, but the girls look pale (maybe some of the soldiers are their boyfriends). Their faces are as pale in colour as the pall. They patiently wait for the soldiers to come home, and when a day ends without anyone showing up, they draw down the blinds in disappointment and anxiety.
There are sound pictures and visual pictures. Images can make statements: the glimmering eyes of the boys, the whiteness of girls’ faces, the pall on the coffin, the drawing down of blinds -- they tell of hope and hopelessness.
The poetic form is made up of two stanzas, eight lines plus six lines. This is a special form called the sonnet. Most of the lines have ten syllables. The endings of the lines rhyme in a specific way: “cattle,” “guns,”” rattle,” “orisons” (a b a b), then “bells,”” choirs,”” shells,”” shires” (c d c d), then “all,”” eyes,”” byes,” “pall” (e f f e), finally “minds,’” blinds” (g g). The effect is that each line is clearly defined. Only two lines are run-on (do not have a stop at the end).
What is the point of the poem? The poet sees the soldiers who are going off to war as condemned to death, though “now” there is no mourning yet. Hence the living soldiers are associated with deathly sounds and sights. They become the living dead. The people at home in “sad shires” will be blowing bugles in remembrance, or will be disappointed every day waiting in vain for the soldiers. This is a very dark view of war. The tone is one of deep sadness, anger, and pity. The feelings are conveyed chiefly through the use of sounds and images. In the poet’s mind, these soldiers are victims of war, and war will cause mourning and loss at home. Note the forceful use of “shall”.
Each poem is unique and may be about an experience foreign to the reader. As readers, we need to be ready to do some work to understand a poem. Following the above suggested steps might help, but the steps are not rigid. And each poem uses language in a different way to make its point. The process of uncovering or discovering the meaning and the ways language is used to build it up gives the reader pleasure and more understanding of life.