It is Poetry Friday and it is also Remembrance Day.
If you have ever attended a Remembrance Day service or, if you’re Australian, an ANZAC Service, you will have heard, and perhaps even recited these words, as the Ode of Remembrance:
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…
But you may not have realised these words come from a much longer poem, beautiful and poignant in its entirety. So, for today, I give you the full poem, read as it should be read by Sir John Gielgud:
I also wanted to share the war poem that had a profound impact on me as a teenager – The Ball Turret Gunner – shocking, brief and utterly devastating – but because it is not in the public domain, I’ll just share a link to where it is shared with permission. That last line is shocking, which is why it is so very powerful.
This Remembrance Day I’ll be thinking of those who have fought and died, but also of all those around the world who are still experiencing war – as participants or as innocent victims. And I’ll keep hoping that one day peace can be a real, enduring thing.
Today’s Poetry Friday Roundup will be hosted by Buffy
I enjoyed hearing the reading of “For the Fallen,” and especially the ending and connection with the stars and star dust that perhaps still hold them along with memories, thanks Sally.
Sally, your post provides poignant reminders of that devastating conflict and the impact it had on our then young nation. You have also stirred up memories of singing ‘The Recessional’ while at Primary school and then later studying the war poets at High school. I have also had the privilege of visiting Gallipoli for the Anzac Day ceremony and that was such a learning experience over two amazing days. so, like you I am greatly moved by these occasions. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and recollections. The distinctive voice of Sir John Gielgud reading those words added potency to those powerful words.
Thanks for sharing your memories Alan. I’ve not bene to Gallipoli, but attended the Villers-Bretonneux Service in 2018, and will never forget it.
As I wrote on another PF Peep’s Veterans’ Day post — the thing that is most tragic to me about WWI (and all wars and acts of deathly violence) is the lost of the potential of those lives. How much good they might have done in the world. And so we remember them, and redouble our efforts to be good and do good. Loved hearing Sir John read the whole poem. And this line haunts:
“as the stars are known to the night…”
Yes, it is quite lovely isn’t it, in spite of – or perhaps because of – it’s serious subject matter.