Armistice Day 2004
11th November 2004



At 11.00am today some will stand in two minutes silence to pay homage to those who lost their lives in the Great War of 1914. Others will quietly remember. Many more wont even know what it is all about even as some of their siblings and peers "lie in some corner of a foreign field" (Robert Browning) they may well be asking "what are those red poppies all about?"

With so few remaining survivors of that appalling conflict (and others) now left and with policticians all around the world still spilling young blood in their revolting desire to leave their names in the history books, hell bent on posterity, we would do well to remember and remember well.

For The Fallen
by
Laurence Binyon (1869-1943)

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 not grow 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 of 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.


First World War: >>>

Royal British legion: www.britishlegion.org.uk