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 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
starry plain,
As the stars are
starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they
remain.
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