Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Sep 2019
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.
Written c 1917 while the poet Wilfred Owen was in the hospital recovering from shell shock
John F McCullagh
Written by
John F McCullagh  63/M/NY
(63/M/NY)   
152
   Scarlet McCall
Please log in to view and add comments on poems