Anthem for Doomed Youth describes memorial tributes to the soldiers who die in war.
The poem ironically compares the sounds of war to the choirs and bells which usually sound at funerals.
It also compares familiar funeral practices to the bleak farewells of young men who should have their whole lives in front of them. In doing so, Wilfred Owen seems to show the futility of religion at this time while also demonstrating the brutality of war.
In the first stanzaA grouped set of lines within a poem. the speaker asks what “passing bells” (the bell ringing we are accustomed to hearing at funerals) there are for slaughtered soldiers. The remainder of the stanza is an angry response to this question, with the various brutal sounds of war - including gunshots and shells - being compared ironically to choirs, prayers and bells.
In the second stanza the speaker asks where the candles are “to speed them all”. The ceremonial aspects of funerals - such as candles and flowers - are shown to be absent in this stanza. Instead Owen shows how these rituals of death are replaced by grieving girls left behind, and the darkness descending as the soldiers die on the battlefield.
