Anthem Chapter I Lyrics

Anthem Chapter I

Desolate winter, 1914
A child in trenches, a young life betrayed.
In the stinging rain a martial drum call,
Replacing the remote wail of hopeless knells.

Still we hear their bitter laughter in the wind
An ideal is fallen in the rain of wailing shells.

What candles were held to speed them all? (W. Owen)
Whose grimy hands closed these tired eyes?
These weary eyes?

Detached from the dreams of youth
Brothers turn to strangers,
The absence of reason realized in the fields
Of Belgium and France

The seeing dead and living blind, united they lie
As if in love
No one left to sound an anthem for their doomed youth

[Based upon "Anthem for doomed youth"
be Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)]