We Will Remember Them
25 April, 2016
Karyn writes:
In 2006 I was privileged to visit ANZAC Cove with daughter Lydia - it was a moving, poignant and emotional expereince - one that we will never forget. The three things that most impacted me (and I am pleased we went on a day when there was few tourists in sight) - the brave souls are mostly not buried where their tombstones stand, they lost beneath the green grass. The almost vertical cliffs our boys were expected to scale on arrival in the cove. The silence - no birdsong despite the trees and gardens.
We will remember them.
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 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 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 inmarches 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 (1869 -1943)
