They went with songs to the battle,
They were young, straight of limb,
True of eyes, 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,
Age shall not weary them,
nor the years condemn,
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them.
LAURENCE BINYON, 1869-1943
I was very interested to read - in Geoff Dyer's extraordinary book The Missing of the Somme, that Binyon's poem was written in September 1914: before the fallen actually fell. It is, as Dyer puts it, an anticipation of remembrance: we will remember them.
ReplyDeleteOn this day I always remember my great uncle Walter Pollock of the Royal Inniskillings. He left Londonderry and died at Aisnes on 13 September 1914. He was 18 and he'd never been further than Portrush.
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