80, for tenor or soprano solo, chorus, and orchestra (1917). Sir Edward Elgar set to music three of Binyon's poems ('The Fourth of August', 'To Women', and 'For the Fallen', published within the collection 'The Winnowing Fan') as The Spirit of England, Op. Like the Menin Gate, the Australian War Memorial incorporates the Ode into its Last Post Ceremony, where it is read by a member of the Australian Defence Force and is followed by a minute of silence and a bugler playing the Last Post. The recital is followed by a minute of silence. It is mostly read by a British serviceman.

The ode is also read at the Menin Gate, every evening at 8 p.m., after the first part of the 'Last Post'. In Canada, the second stanza of the above extract has become known as the Act of Remembrance, and the final line is also repeated. In the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and Singapore, the final line of the ode, 'We will remember them', is repeated in response. Several Boer War memorials are inscribed with the phrase showing its use pre WWI. The line Lest we forget, taken from Kipling's poem 'Recessional' (which incidentally has nothing to do with remembering the fallen in war), is often added as if were part of the ode and repeated in response by those listening, especially in Australia. In Canadian remembrance services, a French translation is often used along with or instead of the English ode. Recitations of the 'Ode of Remembrance' are often followed by a playing of the 'Last Post'. In Australia and New Zealand it is also part of the Dawn service at 4.28 a.m. In Australia's Returned and Services Leagues, and in New Zealand's Returned Services Associations, it is read out nightly at 6 p.m., followed by a minute's silence. The 'Ode of Remembrance' is regularly recited at memorial services held on days commemorating World War I, such as ANZAC Day, Remembrance Day, and Remembrance Sunday. The issue of which word was meant seems to have arisen only in Australia, with little debate in other Commonwealth countries that mark Remembrance Day. If the original publication had contained a misprint, Binyon would have had the chance to make amendments, so it seems unlikely that the word 'contemn' was meant.

This word was also used in the anthology The Winnowing Fan: Poems of the Great War in 1914 in which the poem was later published. When the poem was first printed in The Times on 21 September 1914 the word 'condemn' was used. There has been some debate as to whether the line 'Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn' should end with the words 'condemn' or 'contemn'. The second line of the fourth stanza, 'Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn', draws upon Enobarbus' description of Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra: 'Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale'. They have no lot in our labour of the day-time They sit no more at familiar tables of home They mingle not with their laughing comrades again They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:Īge shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.Īt the going down of the sun and in the morning,

They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted, Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow. They went with songs to the battle, they were young. There is also a plaque on the beehive monument on the East Cliff above Portreath in central North Cornwall which cites that as the place where Binyon composed the poem.Ī quotation appears on the Calgary Soldiers' Memorial.Ī plaque on a statue dedicated to the fallen in La Valletta, Malta, is also inscribed with these words. The plaque bears the inscription: For the Fallen Composed on these cliffs 1914 A stone plaque was erected at the spot in 2001 to commemorate the fact. Laurence Binyon wrote 'For the Fallen', which has seven stanzas, while sitting on the cliffs between Pentire Point and The Rumps in north Cornwall, UK. Over time, the third and fourth stanzas of the poem (usually nowadays just the fourth) have been claimed as a tribute to all casualties of war, regardless of state, and it is this selection of For the Fallen to which the term 'Ode of Remembrance' usually refers. 'For the Fallen' was specifically composed in honour of the casualties of the British Expeditionary Force, which by then already suffered severely at the Battle of Mons and the Battle of the Marne in the opening phase of the war on the Western Front.

Ode of remembrance