We Will Remember Them.

[rosiedoes]

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 contemn.
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.

-- Laurence Binyon



Outside my window I can hear windchimes. On my television, The Somme describes the events of the Great War; my laptop wallpaper is from Band of Brothers. In my natural lifetime, I expect to see the centenaries of the start and end of both the First & Second World Wars.

And we're still at war.

Comments

[missfrost.livejournal.com]

Thanks Rosie, I'd not read that whole poem before. It's nice to see someone actually getting the point of Remembrance rather than a whole bitchfest about what colour poppy to wear.
As a child at school we were taught about the whole relevance of poppies, and at that time we were only 30 and 60 years after the World Wars so it was still very personal in that all our parents and/or grandparents had been affected. (My granddad lost an arm at Normandy, my treasured family heirloom is something my great granddad made while he was a POW in WWI.) I'd hate for it all to be consigned to a vaguely recognised 'history' for the next generation.

[rosiedoes.livejournal.com]

It makes me so sad to think of what people went through to fight for a future that has resulted in this.

Having been in the ATC and attended the parades at the Runnymede Air Force Memorial as a teenager, having met people who fought and people who lost their friends and loved ones in those conflicts, it will always be about the people. Fuck the poppies. As long as people remember why we wear them I don't care if they wear rainbow striped ones.

I used to be one of the cadets who sold poppies for the RAFA; at London Bridge Station, the other day, two young ACF cadets sold me mine. Those are our future. I wish more kids were involved in the CCFs.

I wish more people understood; and I wish the soldiers who have died in the recent conflicts had given their lives for a more noble cause than this.

They deserved better.

[missfrost.livejournal.com]

Well said. For O level English lit we did the war poems, Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, etc, and I didn't "get" them at the time - they were boring old tales of people dying that I couldn't identify with. Once I'd reached about twenty or so I went back and looked at them and realised they were about bloody TEENAGERS who'd lost their life in the service of our country. I still feel awfully ashamed of my earlier reaction, and I wish it had been stressed more in the lessons.

Wilfred Owen, Anthem For Doomed Youth:

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.

[rosiedoes.livejournal.com]

My favourite poem, and the only problem I know off by-heart is An Irish Airman Forsees His Death, by WB Yeats. I posted it last year. It has been my favourite poem since I was in my early teens, in the ATC, and I first heard a version of it watching Memphis Belle.

An Irish Airman Forsees His Death

I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above.
Those I fight, I do not hate;
Those I guard I do not love.
My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan's poor.
No likely end could bring them loss,
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds -
A lowly impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds.
I balanced all, brought all to mind.
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath, the years behind,
In balance with this life, this death.