Submitted by Carl

We are all familiar with the fourth verse of this poem but how many of us have read the whole poem? For me, until now I did not know that the verse came from a poem; I just presumed that it was part of the Remembrance Service that we have every November.

It was written by LAURENCE BINYON (1869 – 1943) in August, 1914 just after the outbreak of the First World War, he and his family were taking a holiday at Polzeath in north Cornwall and it was whilst he was walking on Pentire Point that the first stanza “They shall grow not old” was written which dictated the rhythmical movement of the whole poem. There is a memorial to Laurence Binyon on the cliffs between Pentire Point and The Rumps.

Laurence Binyon was born in 1869 to a Quaker family, studied at Trinity College, Oxford where he won the Newdigate Prize in 1891. In 1893 he started his career in the Dept. of Printed Books at the British Museum, he married Cicely Margaret Powell in 1904 and the couple had three daughters.

He was promoted to Assistant Keeper in the Prints and Drawings Dept. and then made Keeper of the Oriental Prints and Drawings sub department.

To old at 47 to enlist in 1914, he joined the Red Cross and went to the Western Front in 1916 as a Stretcher Bearer and medical orderly in an Ambulance Unit. In recognition of his efforts the French made him a Chevalier of the French Legion of Honour.

At the end of the War he wrote of his experiences in a book called For Dauntless France. In 1941 he was appointed to the Byron Chair of Letters at Athens but this was a short lived honour due to Greece being invaded by the Nazis and Binyon only managed to escape by the skin of his teeth. He died in a Reading nursing home in 1943.

The above information and the poem have been gleaned from an article that originally appeared in the Western Morning News.

FOR THE FALLEN

WITH PROUD THANSGIVING, A MOTHER FOR HER CHILDREN,
ENGLAND MOURNS FOR HER DEAD ACROSS THE SEA.
FLESH OF HER FLESH THEY WERE, SPIRIT OF HER SPIRIT,
FALLEN IN THE COURSE 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 NOT GROW OLD, AS WE 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. 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 LABOUR 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.