Wilfred Owen

Recently I was in Ors in Northern France, where the famous British war Poet Wilfred Owen (1893-1918) was killed in action, on 4 November 1918, one week before the end of the First World War. I visited his grave there on the Communal Cemetery, where on request of his mother these words had been written on the stone:

“Shall Life renew these bodies? Of a truth
All death will he annul”

At first sight, these words, which are from a poem by Owen, make you think that he believed in a life after death, but the poem itself suggests just the opposite, since the full second sentence is:
“All death will he annul, all tears assuage?” Just the question mark shows that Owen probably did not believe in an after-life. Why then did his mother select these words?

Here is the complete poem, which is still worth to read in view of the Russian Ukraine War and all other wars that are still waging in this world:

The End
After the blast of lightning from the east,
The flourish of loud clouds, the Chariot throne,
After the drums of time have rolled and ceased
And from the bronze west long retreat is blown,

Shall Life renew these bodies? Of a truth
All death will he annul, all tears assuage?
Or fill these void veins full again with youth
And wash with an immortal water age?

When I do ask white Age, he saith not so,—
“My head hangs weighted with snow.”
And when I hearken to the Earth she saith
“My fiery heart sinks aching. It is death.
Mine ancient scars shall not be glorified
Nor my titanic tears the seas be dried.”