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 a 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 uncountered:
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.

	-- Laurence Binyon

The Ode: is it ‘condemn’ or ‘contemn’?

Every year, after ANZAC Day and Remembrance Day, the Department of Veterans’ Affairs receives many letters asking about The Ode.

The issue raised by most letters is whether the last word of the second line should be ‘condemn’ or ‘contemn’. Contemn means to ‘despise or treat with disregard’, so both words fit the context.

• 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.

DVA’s Commemorations Branch has been researching the poem and its background. The lines comprise the fourth stanza of the poem For the Fallen by Laurence Binyon, and were written in the bleak early days of World War 1. By mid-September 1914, less than seven weeks after the outbreak of war, the British Expeditionary Force in France had already suffered severe casualties. During this time, long lists of the dead and wounded appeared in British newspapers. It was against this background that Binyon, then the Assistant Keeper of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum, wrote For the Fallen. This poem was first published in The Times on 21 September 1914.

The Times shows ‘condemn’. Some people have suggested that the use of ‘condemn’ in The Times was a typographical error. If it were, one would have expected then that the word would be correctly shown in The Winnowing Fan, published only a few months later and for which Binyon would have had galley proofs on which to mark amendments. Binyon was a highly educated man and very precise in his language and use of words. There is no doubt that had he intended ‘contemn’, then it would have been used.

There have been variations in punctuation within the poem across the years and a change in the spelling from ‘stanch’ to ‘staunch’. Dr John Hatcher, who published in 1995 an exhaustive biography of Binyon, does not even refer to any possible doubt over condemn/contemn, despite devoting a solid chapter to For the Fallen.

The British Society of Authors, who are executors of the Binyon estate, says the word is definitely ‘condemn’, while the British Museum, where Binyon worked, says its memorial stone also shows ‘condemn’. Both expressed surprise when told there had been some debate about the matter in Australia. Interestingly, the text used in 1916 by Sir Edward Elgar to set the poem to music has eight stanzas; the eighth being inserted between what now is regarded as the third and fourth stanzas.

The condemn/contemn issue seems to be a distinctly Australian phenomenon. Inquiries with the British, Canadian, and American Legions reveal that none has heard of the debate. Despite an exhaustive search by Commemorations Branch through Binyon’s published anthologies, no copy of the poem using ‘contemn’ was found. The two-volume set Collected Poems, regarded as the definitive version of Binyon’s poems, uses ‘condemn’. Although inquiries are continuing, there now seems little prospect of finding anything to support even a little the ‘contemn’ claim.

In Australia, the Returned and Services League, in its League handbook, shows ‘condemn’, while a representative of the Australian War Memorial said it always uses ‘condemn’ in its ceremonies. So how did the confusion start? No-one knows, but certainly the question has been debated for many years. Surely now it’s time to put the matter to rest.

Information courtesy of Department of Veterans' Affairs

I was an Army private... a Naval commander... an Air Force bombardier. No man knows me... no name marks my tomb, for I am every Australian serviceman... I am the Unknown Soldier.

1. In Flanders fields the poppies blow 

2. between the crosses, row on row

3. that mark our place, and in the sky 

4. the larks still bravely singing fly

5. scarce heard among the guns below. 

6. We are The Dead. Short days ago

7. we lived, felt dawn, saw sunset's glow, 

8. loved and were loved, 

9. and now we lie, in Flanders fields.

10.  

11. Take up our quarrel with the foe, 

12. to you from failing hands we throw

13. The Torch; be yours to hold it high. 

14. If ye break faith with us who die

15. we shall not sleep, though poppies grow, 

16. in Flanders fields. 

In the years immediately following World War 1, governments and the whole of society, had not accepted the responsibility for those incapacitated and bereft as a result of war.  In Britain, unemployment accentuated the problem. Earl Haig, the British Commander-in-Chief, undertook the task of organising the British Legion as a means of coping with the problems of hundreds and thousands of men who had served under him in battle. In 1921, a group of widows of French ex-servicemen called on him at the British Legion Headquarters.

They brought with them from France some poppies they had made, and suggested that they might be sold as a means of raising money to aid the distressed among those who were incapacitated as a result of the war. The first red poppies to come to Australia, in 1921, were made in France.

In Australia, single poppies are not usually worn on ANZAC Day - the poppy belongs to Remembrance Day, 11 November. However, wreaths of poppies are traditionally placed at memorials and honour boards on ANZAC Day.

The red Flanders’ poppy was first described as a flower of remembrance by Colonel John McCrae, who was Professor of Medicine at McGill University of Canada before World War One. Colonel McCrae had served as a gunner in the Boer War, but went to France in World War One as a medical Officer with the first Canadian Contingent. He was KIA.

The Reply

Fear not that you have died for naught; 

The Torch you threw to us, we caught

and now our hands will hold it high. 

It's glorious light shall never die.

We'll not break faith with you who lie, 

in Flanders fields.  R W Lilliard.

Reply to In Flanders’ Fields (2)

In Flanders’ fields the cannons boom,
And fitful flashes light the gloom;
While up above, like eagles, fly
The fierce destroyers of the sky;
With stains the earth wherein you lie
Is redder than the poppy bloom,
In Flanders’ fields.

Sleep on, ye brave! The shrieking shell,
The quaking trench, the startling yell,
The fury of the battle hell
Shall wake you not, for all is well;
Sleep peacefully, for all is well.

Your flaming torch aloft we bear,
With burning heart and oath we swear
To keep the faith, to fight it through,
To crush the foe, or sleep with you,
In Flanders’ fields.

Another reply (part)

And still the poppies gently blow,
Between the crosses, row on row.
The larks, still bravely soaring high,
Are singing now their lullaby
To you who sleep where poppies grow
In Flanders’ fields.

The Gentle Poppy

Forever will the poppies blow, 

between the crosses row on row,

At Fromelles, and Pozières, 

at Bullecourt and Ypres.

At Monquet, and Hamal, 

at Villiers and  Passchendaele,

The Hindenburg Line, and Polygon, 

at Quentin and on the Somme.

At Messines Ridge and the Menin Gate, 

at Verdun, we honour and lament their fate.

In Flanders fields where brave men died, 

wars peace for those where good men lie,

No greater honour could I know, 

than between those crosses row on row.

In Memory of

Lance Serjeant G B KIRKLAND 51786, 11th Bn Royal Fusiliers who died age 19 on 17 February 1917. Son of John F. and Jean Stevenson Kirkland of 771 Hawthorn St., Springburn, Glasgow. Remembered with honour REGINA TRENCH CEMETERY, GRANDCOURT

SSC KELSEN  "The Bunyip" from the Bush Poets Society. Used with permission

I Wear The Poppy

I wear the poppy, to remind me every day,

Of the price paid by so many, on those fields so far away.

 I wear the poppy, every day so all will know,

That I pay a silent tribute, to all the crosses in their rows.

I wear the poppy, for all those gone to God and home,

For all the Anzac sons and daughters, this is their special poem.

 That is why I wear the poppy, on each and every day,

To show that I remember them, for I honour them this way.

SSC KELSEN  “The Bunyip from the Bush Poets society”