What candles may be
held speed them all each slow dusk
drawing down of blinds

Adapted from Anthem for Doomed Youth by Wilfred Owen

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 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.

Wilfred Owen was born at Oswestry on 18th March 1893. He was educated at the Birkenhead Institute, and matriculated at London University in 1910. In 1913 he obtained a private tutorship near Bordeaux, where he remained until 1915. During this period he became acquainted with the eminent French poet, Laurent Tailhade, to whom he showed his early verses, and from whom he received considerable encouragement. In 1915, in spite of delicate health, he joined the Artists’ Rifles O.T.C., was gazetted to the Manchester Regiment, and served with their 2nd Battalion in France from December 1916 to June 1917, when he was invalided home. Fourteen months later he returned to the Western Front and served with the same Battalion, ultimately commanding a Company.

He was awarded the Military Cross for gallantry while taking part in some heavy fighting on 1st October. He was killed on 4th November 1918, while endeavouring to get his men across the Sambre Canal.

A month before his death he wrote to his mother: “My nerves are in perfect order. I came out again in order to help these boys; directly, by leading them as well as an officer can; indirectly, by watching their sufferings that I may speak of them as well as a pleader can.”

I am no youth by no less doomed.

No mockeries for them;

no prayers nor bells,

Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs.

feed me in sorrow
laugh in all my pain burn freeze
I find no peace yet

I can think of many inventors.

Thomas Edison and the electric light.

Thomas Edison and the phonograph.

Thomas Edison and the cement house.

Ah, well.

Then there is Thomas Wyatt.

Sir Thomas Wyatt.

Sir Thomas lived, worked and wrote during the era of Henry VIII.

He lived to be the ripe old age of 39, which for someone in Henry VIII’s posse, that might be considered to be a old aged.

When Henry wanted to be free of Anne Boleyn, his 2nd wife (I won’t keep you long as Henry was known to tell his wives), Ms. Boleyn was charge with adultery.

Ms. Boleyn was sent to the Tower of London and the Tower Police rounded up the usual suspects which included Sir Thomas.

I think it is almost still common knowledge today that Ms. Boleyn had her head chopped off by orders of the King.

What I didn’t know was the five other men charged the case, George Boleyn, Henry Norris, Sir Francis Weston, William Brereton and Mark Smeaton, were also executed.

Some historians think that Sir Thomas was imprisoned in a cell with a view of the tower green and was able to watch as all five men were beheaded and then, 2 days later, watch the same for Ms. Boleyn.

Things calmed down a bit after that and Sir Thomas was restored to favor with the King.

A glance at his short life his Sir Thomas in and out and in and out of favor with the King on almost a seasonal basis.

Then Sir Thomas dies.

Years after his death, in 1557, a collection of some 97 to 130 or so poems that Sir Thomas wrote in his lifetime was published.

As scholars looked them over, they realized some were pretty good poems and were in face, sonnets.

Then the scholars looked at the dates and realized that they were written some years before Shakespeare.

Thusly, Sir Thomas Wyatt invented the sonnet.

Alas, like some many inventors whose inventions reach acclaim after the inventor has passed on, Sir Thomas never knew it.

I find the sonnet I Find no Peace to be a great source of words for haiku and I have quoted it often.

Having just learned the Anne Boleyn connection I wonder.

I wonder if he watched.

I wonder if he heard.

The sound of the axe.

The roar of the crowd.

Did he listen for the key in the door that day?

Would the knowledge that his poems survived been any comfort?

And yet and yet.

And time and time.

300 years later, Mr. Thoreau would say his famous, The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.

I find no peace, and all my war is done.
I fear and hope. I burn and freeze like ice.

I fly above the wind, yet can I not arise;
And nought I have, and all the world I season.

That loseth nor locketh holdeth me in prison
And holdeth me not — yet can I scape no wise—

Nor letteth me live nor die at my device,
And yet of death it giveth me occasion.

Without eyen I see, and without tongue I plain.
I desire to perish, and yet I ask health.

I love another, and thus I hate myself.
I feed me in sorrow and laugh in all my pain;

Likewise displeaseth me both life and death,
And my delight is causer of this strife.