"Anthem for Doomed Youth" explication

Wilfred Owen uses alliteration and a mixture of euphony and cacophony in his poem “Anthem for Doomed Youth”. Wilfred Owen was an English poet who was also a young soldier in World War I. In this particular poem there is a direct relation to the soldiers, especially the young, who died in war. The first line in the sonnet describes asks a rather disturbing question, “What passing bells for these who die as cattle?” A passing bell was a bell rung after a death to signal prayers, an already unfathomable concept made even more depressing because of the young corpses. Following that question, Owen uses alliteration in many of his lines such as “stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle/The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells; and bugles calling for them from sad shires/ holy glimmers of good-byes/ The pallor of girls’ brows shall be thier pall/ dusk a drawing down of blinds” In accordance with the alliteration, Owen simultaneously infuses both cacophony and euphony when describing the events of the funerals. He describes the sounds of the guns going off in respect for the fallen soldiers and how the sound of the rifles cannot ignore the sound of the orisons, or prayers. Though the sounds of rifles or mourning choirs are not pleasing, Wilfred Owen makes them sound pleasing in description. The sounds of the consonants in the vocabulary of the poem makes it more appealing in terms of auditory senses, yet when making connections to what the poet is actually talking about, the somber effect of what the poem is actually about starts to take effect.The poem itself is almost a paradox in terms of language when describing the eeriness of the event. The story behind the poem is not beautiful, but the words Owen uses to describe the story and illustrate what is happening, makes it almost pleasing to hear about. It really is, in that way, an anthem, in terms of being a choral composition or a hymn-like poem, but in no way is it uplifting, which makes sense since it is an anthem for doomed youth.