In "Anthem for Doomed Youth", by Wilfred Owen, what will serve as "passing-bells?" doomed youth, guns, orisons, shires, or brows

In Wilfred Owen's "Anthem for Doomed Youth," the author refers
to the tolling of bells.

It has been a common practice in England
for hundreds of years to toll church bells at someone's passing. It occurs
still today, in some places in the United States, and even at memorial services for those lost a
sea. The tolling is a slow, mournful ringing. With this in mind, we can assume that Owen's
reference to bells questions how the bells will be rung on the battlefield for all those who have
died.

The answer for "who will serve as passing bells" is found in
the first two lines of the poem—the guns blasting will have to serve also as the
bells:

What
passing-bells for these who die as cattle?

Only the
monstrous anger of the
guns.

"Doomed youth" cannot
toll bells for themselves as they are dead. The "shires" are far away in England, and they cannot
toll bells on the battlefield for those who have
fallen—if a body is returned home, then it will happen.
"Orisons" or prayers are quiet and would not serve to draw the necessary attention to the loss of
lives. "Brows" is the "throw-away" answer. In context, the brows belong to the women left behind
as the men go off to war, the same women who now will grieve.

Where
the guns act as the tolling bells, the rifles rattle off prayers. It is as if in the midst of
war, the aspects of society that are in place at one's death (the tolling of bells or the
whispered "orisons" or prayers) are replaced by elements of the war, by necessity of where these
men find themselves.

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Only the stuttering rifles' rapid
rattle

Can patter out their hasty
orisons.

The best answer to this
question is "guns."