“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.”
“For the Fallen” – Laurence Binyon
“Sweet Sister, grant your soldier this:
That in good fury he may feel
The body where he sets his heel
Quail from your downward darting kiss.”
“The Kiss” – Siegfried Sassoon
“Show me the two so closely bound
As we, by the wet bond of blood,
By friendship blossoming from mud,
By Death: we faced him, and we found
Beauty in Death,
In dead men, breath.”
“Two Fusiliers” – Robert Graves
“They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.”
“And Death Shall Have No Dominion” – Dylan Thomas
“In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place: and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.”
“In Flanders Fields” – John McCrae
“In splendid sleep, with a thousand brothers
To lovers – to mothers
Here, too, lies he:
Under the purple, the green, the red
It is all young life: it must break some women’s hearts to see
Such a brave, gay, coverlet to such a bed!”
“The Cenotaph” – Charlotte Mew
“‘I am the enemy you killed, my friend
I knew you in this dark: for so you frowned
Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed.
I parried; but my hands were loath and cold.
Let us sleep now……'”
“Strange Meeting” – Wilfred Owen
“Never such innocence,
Never before or since,
As changed itself to past
Without a word–the men
Leaving the gardens tidy,
The thousands of marriages,
Lasting a little while longer:
Never such innocence again.“
God said, “Men have forgotten Me:
The souls that sleep shall wake again
And blinded must learn to see.”
So since redemption comes through pain
He smote the earth with chastening rodAnd brought destruction’s lurid reign;
But where His desolation trod
The people in their agony
Despairingly cried, “There is no God.”
“In sodden trenches I have heard men speak,
Though numb and wretched, wise and witty things;
And loved them for the stubbornness that clings
Longest to laughter when Death’s pulleys creak;”
“War and Peace” – Edgell Rickword
“Here dead we lie
Because we did not choose
To live and shame the land
From which we sprung.”
“Here Dead We Lie” – A.E. Housman
“Calm fell. From Heaven distilled a clemency;
There was peace on earth, and silence in the sky;
Some could, some could not, shake off misery:
The Sinister Spirit sneered: ‘It had to be!’
And again the Spirit of Pity whispered, ‘Why?'”
“And There Was Great Calm” – Thomas Hardy
” Soldiers never do die well;
Crosses mark the places —
Wooden crosses where they fell,
Stuck above their faces.
Soldiers pitch and cough and twitch —
All the world roars red and black;
Soldiers smother in a ditch,
Choking through the whole attack.”
“Champs d’Honneur” – Ernest Hemingway
“Still to the last of crumbling time
Upon this stone be read
How many men of England died
To prove they were not dead.”
“For a War Memorial” – G.K.Chesterton
“There are waters blown by changing winds to laughter
And lit by the rich skies, all day. And after,
Frost, with a gesture, stays the waves that dance
And wandering loveliness. He leaves a white
Unbroken glory, a gathering radiance,
A width, a shining peace, under the night.”
…………………………………………
With thanks to these poets and also to Paul Cummins and Tom Piper for the “Tower of London Poppies Installation”: “Blood swept lands and seas of red”
