Anthem for Doomed Youth / Wilfred Owen

"Anthem for Doomed Youth" is a well-known popular poem written by Wilfred Owen which incorporates the themes of the horror of war. It employs the traditional form of a petrarchan sonnet, but it uses the rhyme scheme of an English sonnet.

Much of the second half of the poem is dedicated to funeral rituals suffered by those families deeply affected by World War I. The poem does this by following the sorrow of common soldiers in one of the bloodiest battles of the 20th century. Written between September and October 1917, when Owen was a patient at Craiglockhart War Hospital in Edinburgh recovering from shell shock, the poem is a lament for young soldiers whose lives were unnecessarily lost in the First World War. The poem is also a comment on Owen's rejection of his religion in 1915.

The poem
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.
 * Anthem for Doomed Youth

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.

Owen and Sasoon
While at hospital, Owen met and befriended Siegfried Sassoon, and asked for his assistance in refining his poem's rough drafts. It was Sassoon who named the start of the poem "anthem", and who also substituted "doomed" for "dead"; the famous epithet of "patient minds" is also a correction of his. The amended manuscript copy, in both men's handwriting, still exists and may be found at the Wilfred Owen Manuscript Archive on the world wide web.