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.
The second section of the sonnet, six lines forming the sestet, deals with the those who mourn the fallen soldiers. It mirrors the beginning of the poem, also starting with a  rhetorical question . This parallel evokes the cyclical nature of conflict and war. This point is the sonnet’s  volta  or “turn” which marks a new idea or change in direction. The “boys” are the children who take part in the formal church service, the dignified funeral that is denied the men. Even though the ‘volta’ signifies a change, the consistency and cycle created by the mirrored syntax of using a rhetorical question emphasises that the soldiers are ‘doomed’. 
 These three complex lines are saying that the young men who have been killed will not have candles held for them in church; there will be no formal funeral service. The metaphorical candles exist only ‘in their eyes’.  The noun ‘glimmers’ is apt, in that it suggests a weak and almost extinguished light — as one might refer to, for example, ‘a glimmer of hope’. Of course, here the glimmer represents a farewell. 
 Note the  alliterative  ‘g’s and 'sh’s create a hypnotic, rhythmic mood. 
 The adjective ‘holy’ is ironic. There is nothing sacred in the way these young soldiers died.