The History Park Poetry Page


	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 in drums thrill: Death august and royal Signs 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 at home; They have no lot in our labor of the daytime; They sleep beyond England's foam. But where our desires are and our hopes profound, felt as a wellspring that is hidden from sight, To the innermost heart of their own land they are known As the stars that 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. - Laurence Robert Binyon (1869 - 1943)	The Penguin Book of First World War Poetry Biography Links: John McCrae Isaac Rosenberg Wilfred Owen Laurence Robert Binyon

	Break of Day in the Trenches The darkness crumbles away It is the same old druid Time as ever, Only a live thing leaps my hand, A queer sardonic rat, As I pull the parapet's poppy To stick behind my ear. Droll rat, they would shoot you if they knew Your cosmopolitan sympathies, Now you have touched this English hand You will do the same to a German Soon, no doubt, if it be your pleasure To cross the sleeping green between. It seems you inwardly grin as you pass Strong eyes, fine limbs, haughty athletes, Less chanced than you for life, Bonds to the whims of murder, Sprawled in the bowels of the earth, The torn fields of France. What do you see in our eyes At the shrieking iron and flame Hurled through still heavens? What quaver -what heart aghast? Poppies whose roots are in men's veins Drop, and are ever dropping; But mine in my ear is safe, Just a little white with the dust. - Isaac Rosenberg (1890-1918)

	Futility Move him into the sun - Gently its touch awoke him once, At home, whispering of fields unsown. Always it woke him, even in France, Until this morning and this snow. If anything might rouse him now The kind old sun will know. Think how it wakes the seeds, Woke, once, the clays of a cold star. Are limbs, so dear-achieved, are sides, Full-nerved - still warm, - too hard to stir? Was it for this the clay grew tall? O what made fatuous sunbeams toil To break earth's sleep at all? *- Wilfred Owen* (1893-1918)

	In Flanders Fields 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. We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie In Flanders fields. Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from failing hands we throw The torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields. *- Lt. Col. John McCrae M.D.* (1872-1918)

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