ANTHEM FOR DOOMED YOUTH BY WILFRED OWEN

Anthem For Doomed Youth

Owen wrote this poem in 1917 while he was a patient under Dr Rivers at Edinburgh's Craiglockhart War Hospital. A lament for the loss of so many young men's lives, it was heavily influenced by Owen's budding friendship with fellow patient and poet Siegfried Sassoon. Sassoon polished Owen's early drafts and renamed it, introducing the notion of an Anthem and substituting Doomed into the title in place of Dead.

Born in 1893 and a distinguished recipient of the Military Cross, Owen was killed in action at the Battle of the Sambre just a week before the war ended. News of his death reached his family as his home town's church bells declared peace.