bugles calling from sad shires

Up, Down.

You try so hard but you don't understand
Just what you'll say when you get home
Because something is happening here
But you don't know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones? (Bob Dylan)

"This may not be what you would have seen if you had been there, but what you would have seen would have missed the whole point of what was really going on." (Northrop Frye)

I take this to mean the impossibility of the currently ubiquitous ironic perspective which keeps one safely separate, soi-distant and unaffected. Elsewhere he tells us that it is a cycle, and that the ironic bottom soon leads us back to the mythic top - perhaps not soon enough for some. At least I do not see much irony in the poem that follows,, nor in his face:

Wilfred Owen - Anthem for Doomed Youth

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 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 good-byes.
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.


Down.