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 absense of reason realized in the fields

Of Belgium and France

The seeing dead and living blind, united they lie

As if in love

Noone left to sound an anthem for their doomed youth