All sounds have been as music to my listening - Wilfred Owen

What passing bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifle's rapid 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 may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes,
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
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.

"The Chances"

"I mind as ’ow the night afore that show
Us five got talking, — we was in the know,
“Over the top to-morrer; boys, we’re for it,
First wave we are, first ruddy wave; that’s tore it.”
“Ah well,” says Jimmy, — an’ ’e’s seen some scrappin’ — “There ain’t more nor five things as can ’appen;
Ye get knocked out; else wounded — bad or cushy;
Scuppered; or nowt except yer feeling mushy.”

One of us got the knock-out, blown to chops.
T’other was hurt, like, losin’ both ’is props.
An’ one, to use the word of ’ypocrites,
‘Ad the misfortoon to be took by Fritz.
Now me, I wasn’t scratched, praise God Almighty
(Though next time please I’ll thank ’im for a blighty),
But poor young Jim, ’e’s livin’ an’ ’e’s not;
’E reckoned ’e’d five chances, an’ ’e’s ’ad;
’E’s wounded, killed, and pris’ner, all the lot — The ruddy lot all rolled in one. Jim’s mad."

All a poet can do today is warn. That is why the true Poets must be truthful.