For the Fallen
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For the Fallen is a poem by Lawrence Binyon, written while sitting on The Rumps, Polseath Polzeath, Cornwall, and first published in The Times in September, 1914. The seven-verse poem honoured the World War I British war dead of that time and in particular the British Expeditionary Force, which had by then already had high casualty rates on the developing Western Front. The poem was published when the Battle of the Marne was foremost in people's minds.
The fourth verse from that poem has gained an existence of its own and is known today as the Ode of Remembrance - one that applies to all war dead:
- 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.
"The Ode" is still regularly recited on occasions such as Remembrance Day and Remembrance Sunday in the United Kingdom and Canada and ANZAC day in Australia and New Zealand, and adorns numerous war memorials including The Cenotaph in Whitehall. It is customarily read by an old soldier. In Australia's Returned and Services Leagues, it is read out nightly at 6 p.m.
Time of our Darkness is the title of a novel by South African author Stephen Gray. The last two lines of For the Fallen are 'As the stars are starry in the time of our darkness, To the end, to the end they remain.'
[edit] ‘Condemn’ or ‘contemn’?
There has been some debate as to whether the line “Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn” should end with the words ‘condemn’ or ‘contemn’. Contemn means to ‘despise’ therefore either word would make sense in the context of the stanza.
When the poem was printed ‘condemn’. This word was also used in The Winnowing Fan in which the poem was published later. Binyon would have had the chance to make amendments so it seems unlikely that the word contemn was meant. [1]
The issue of what word was meant seems only to have arisen in Australia, with little debate in other Commonwealth countries that mark Remembrance Day.
