It’s 1917, towards the end of the First World War. The poet and soldier Siegfried Sassoon has made his Declaration against the war:

I am making this statement as an act of wilful defiance of military authority, because I believe the war is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it. I am a soldier, convinced that I am acting on behalf of soldiers. I believe that this war, upon which I entered as a war of defence and liberation, has now become a war of aggression and conquest. I believe that the purposes for which I and my fellow soldiers entered upon this war should have been so clearly stated as to have made it impossible to change them, and that, had this been done, the objects which actuated us would now be attainable by negotiation. I have seen and endured the suffering of the troops, and I can no longer be a party to prolong these sufferings for ends which I believe to be evil and unjust. I am not protesting against the conduct of the war, but against the political errors and insincerities for which the fighting men are being sacrificed. On behalf of those who are suffering now I make this protest against the deception which is being practised on them; also I believe that I may help to destroy the callous complacence with which the majority of those at home regard the continuance of agonies which they do not share, and which they have not sufficient imagination to realize.

S. Sassoon

In Craiglochart hospital, where Siegfried Sassoon was sent after making this Declaration, he and fellow inmate Wilfred Owen are discussing a draft of Owen’s latest poem.

Sassoon took the sheet and read the whole poem through twice, then returned to the first two lines. “What minute-bells for these who die so fast? – Only the monstrous/solemn anger of our guns.”

Owen: “I thought ‘passing’ bells.”

Sassoon: “Hm. Though if you lose ‘minute’ you realize how weak ‘fast’ is. ‘Only the monstrous anger …’ “

Owen: “‘Solemn’?”

Sassoon: “‘Only the solemn anger of our guns.’ Owen, for God’s sake, this is War Office propaganda.”

Owen: “No, it’s not.”

Sassoon: “Read that line.”

Owen: “Well, it certainly isn’t meant to be.”

Sassoon: “I suppose what you’ve got to decide is who are ‘these’? The British dead? Because if they’re British, then ‘our guns’ is …”

Owen shook his head. “All the dead.”

Sassoon: “Let’s start there.” Sassoon crossed out “our” and pencilled in “the”. “You’re sure that’s what you want? It isn’t a minor change.”

Owen: “No, I know. If it’s ‘the’, it’s got to be ‘monstrous’.”

Sassoon: “Agreed.” Sassoon crossed out “solemn”. “So: ‘What passing-bells for these who die …’ so fast? ‘– Only the monstrous anger of the guns.'”

Owen: “Well, there’s nothing wrong with the second line.”

Sassoon: “‘In herds’?”

Owen: “Better.”

A few days later:

Sassoon: “What draft is this?”

Owen: “Lost count. You did tell me to sweat my guts out.”

Sassoon: “Did I really? What an inelegant expression. ‘What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?’ I see we got to the slaughterhouse in the end.”

Sassoon read through the poem. When he’d finished, he didn’t immediately comment.

Owen: “It’s better, isn’t it?”

Sassoon: “Better? It’s transformed.” He read it again. “Though when you look at the sense … You do realize you’ve completely contradicted yourself, don’t you? You start by saying there is no consolation, and then you say there is.”

Owen: “Not consolation. Pride in the sacrifice.”

Sassoon: “Isn’t that consolation?”

Owen: “If it is, it’s justifiable. There’s a point beyond which –”

Sassoon: “I don’t see that.”

Owen: “There’s a point beyond which you can’t press the meaninglessness. Even if the courage is being abused, it’s still …” Owen leapt up, went to the drawer of his washstand and produced the typescript Sassoon had lent him. He began leafing quickly but carefully through it. Sassoon, watching, thought, he’s getting better. No stammer. Quick, decisive movements. The self-confidence to contradict his hero. And the poem had been a revelation.

Owen: “Look, you do exactly the same thing:

O my brave brown companions, when your souls

Flock silently away, and the eyeless dead

Shame the wild beast of battle on the ridge,

Death will stand grieving in that field of war

Since your unvanquished hardihood is spent.

And through some mooned Valhalla there will pass

Battalions and battalions, scarred from hell;

The unreturning army that was youth;

The legions who have suffered and are dust

“What’s that if not pride in the sacrifice?”

Sassoon: “Grief? All right, point taken. I just don’t like the idea of … making it out to be less of a horror than it really is.” He looked down at the page. “I think you should publish this.”

Owen: “You mean in the Hydra?”

Sassoon: “No, I mean in the Nation. Give me a fair copy and I’ll see what I can do. You’ll need a different title, though. ‘Anthem for …'” He thought for a moment, crossed one word out, substituted another. “There you are.” He handed the page back, smiling.  “’Anthem for Doomed Youth’.”

The completed poem:

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?

–Only the monstrous anger of the guns.

Only the stuttering rifles’ 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 the 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 palor of girls’ brows shall be their pall;

Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,

And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

Owen was killed in action several days before the Armistice ended the war. Sassoon was wounded in 1918 and spent what was left of the war in London. He died in 1967.

Conversation between Sassoon and Owen adapted from Pat Barker (1992), Regeneration, Penguin Books, London, pp. 141-142, 156-158.