For the fall
For the Fallen is a poem by Laurence Binyon , which commemorates the fallen English soldiers in the First World War .
It appeared in The Times on September 21, 1914 , and was set to music by Edward Elgar in 1915 . Douglas Guest wrote a choral work on the text in 1971 as organist and choirmaster of Westminster Abbey , which is performed annually on Remembrance Sunday . The poem is regularly recited at commemorative events on the First World War, in addition to Remembrance Sunday, for example on ANZAC Day or Remembrance Day . The fourth stanza of the poem, known as the Ode of Remembrance , is found on numerous war memorials .
text
With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
falling in the cause of the free.
Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
there is music in the midst of desolation
and a glory that shines upon our tears.
They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labor of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.
But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;
As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.