In honor of Memorial Day, I wanted to share Laurence Binyon’s poem “For the Fallen”.  Binyon wrote the poem in 1914, shortly after the start of World War I, amazed by the massive casualties the war had caused. The recent Battle of the Marne had claimed more than a half a million lives.  Laurence Binyon (1869-1943) wrote it while working at the British Museum, and did not go to the western front until 1916, as a Red Cross orderly.

The poem’s fourth verse is now used all over the world during services of remembrance, and is inscribed on countless war monuments.

I honor your loved ones who have served, and who are serving. Who gave and who are giving. This picture is of my grandfather, James L. McCammon who served during World War II. I hope you enjoy the poem and I hope you remember…

For the Fallen…

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,
Fallen 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 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.