What passing-bells2 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 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.
In this poem, Owen tells us that those who die on the battlefield will not receive the customary rites given to the dead, which give them dignity in death--there will be no "passing bells" to mark their deaths, "no prayers," "nor any voice of mourning." All that is left to them are the memories held by loved ones and friends--"the tenderness of patient minds." "Each slow dusk" shall bring them to remembrance. It would seem that it is memory that redeems their humanity--and thus, their worth--from the dehumanizing effects of war, which reduces them to the level of mere "cattle" to be slaughtered.
And yet, memories fade and eventually those who hold these memories will themselves die. The memories of others cannot, ultimately, give dignity to "these who die as cattle" in war. Instead--I would say--it is the fact that human beings are created imago Dei ("in the image of God") and the fact that it was for them that God's own Son came into the world that those who die in war retain a fundamental value and dignity despite the dehumanizing circumstances of their deaths. Rather than "cattle," they are those who are but "a little lower than the angels," as the Psalmist says. War, in all its awfulness, can never take that away.
Image of World War I soldiers from telegraph.co.uk