It was written in the fall of 1917 and published posthumously in 1920. This searing poem is one of Owen's most critically acclaimed. The pale faces of the girls will be what cover their coffins, patient minds will act as flowers, and the "slow dusk" will be the drawing of the shades. There are no candles held by the young men to help their passing, only the shimmering in their eyes to say goodbye. They get no mockeries, no bells, no mourning voices except for the choir of the crazed "wailing shells" and the sad bugles calling from their home counties. They have only the ragged sounds of the rifle as their prayers. The speaker says there are no bells for those who die "like cattle" – all they get is the "monstrous anger of the guns".
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