Armistice Day

It was a strange Remembrance Sunday due to Lockdown this year. I usually take part in a Remembrance Sunday service at church playing the organ but this time I was sat at home watching a service online.

Today I have chosen a poem for Armistice Day by Wilfred Owen.

Anthem for Doomed Youth

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' raid 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 my 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.

Wilfred Owen