It was Sassoon who named the start of the poem "anthem", and who also substituted "dead", on the original article, with "doomed"; the famous epithet of "patient minds" is also a correction of his.

[2] It is possible that Owen chose the expression 'passing bells' as a way of reply to the following anonymous prefatory note of the 1916 volume of "Poems of Today", which was in his possession: "This book has been compiled in order that boys and girls, already perhaps familiar with the great classics of the English speech, may also know something of the newer poetry of their own day.

Most of the writers are living, and the rest are still vivid memories among us, while one of the youngest, almost as these words are written, has gone singing to lay down his life for his country's cause...

There is no arbitrary isolation of one theme from another; they mingle and interpenetrate throughout, to the music of Pan's flute, and of Love's viol, and the bugle-call of Endeavour, and the passing-bells of Death.

During live performances of the song "Paschendale", Iron Maiden singer Bruce Dickinson often recites the first half of the poem.