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For The Fallen
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Post For The Fallen 
Rememberence day is now upon us, and I would like us all, to reflect on the poem by Rupert Lawrence Binyon, which he wrote in September 1914.

The 4th stanza may be familiar to all of you, but, to those of you who have always wondered where it came from, here it is in its entirety.

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 at 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.

Never has a poem been more appropriate.

Yours Aye

Arthur

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Arthur, thanks for posting this poem.

I must, very ashamedly, admit that this is the first time I have seen it. Very moving.

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Post For The Fallen 
Hi Laurie B,

Rupert Lawrence Binyon was an academic and historian, and graduated from Trinity College Cambridge. He wrote this poem in Cornwall, before he ever set foot on French soil, where he served in the Army Medical Corps.

He is better remembered in the academic world, as Byron Professor, of History, at Athens University, also as an art critic and expert in Chinese and Japanese art. He died in 1943, virtually unknown outside the world of acadaemia.

Basically, there is no earthly reason why you should have heard of him, as there is rarely any attributation of the famous stanza to him.

Yours Aye

Arthur

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