Robert Laurence Binyon

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.

Written September 1914

Binyon wrote this three weeks into WWI, before the Somme, before the trenches. The war was still 'glorious'—no one knew what was coming.

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:

The famous stanza

These four lines are read at every Remembrance Day ceremony in Commonwealth countries. Written at the war's beginning, they became the war's epitaph.

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;

Stars = permanence

The dead become fixed stars while the living are 'dust.' He's inverting the usual metaphor—the dead are eternal, we're temporary.

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;

Cosmic scale

'Marches upon the heavenly plain' makes military formations astronomical. The dead soldiers become constellations in permanent formation.

As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.
Laurence Binyon
Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

When This Was Written

CONTEXT Binyon wrote this on September 21, 1914, sitting on the cliffs of North Cornwall. Britain had been at war for seven weeks. The Battle of the Marne had just ended. Total British deaths: around 15,000. By war's end: 886,000.

The poem's tone makes sense when you know the date. 'They went with songs to the battle' wasn't metaphor yet—it was reportage. Early volunteers really did sing on their way to France. The war still seemed brief, necessary, even romantic. Binyon was writing elegy for a small number of dead, not prophecy for millions.

This timing explains the poem's strange confidence. 'Death august and royal' sounds absurd after the Somme, but in September 1914, the war hadn't yet become industrial slaughter. Binyon could still imagine death in battle as tragic but dignified. The poem got famous because it was written early enough to be hopeful and good enough to survive disillusionment.

The Fourth Stanza's Afterlife

'They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old'—this stanza, called the 'Ode of Remembrance,' is the poem's only part most people know. It's read aloud at 11 AM on November 11 across Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Canada. After the reading, everyone says: 'We will remember them.'

The stanza works because it's specific about what the dead miss: aging. Not 'they died young' but 'age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.' The verb 'condemn' is doing heavy work—it admits that growing old is partly punishment. The dead are spared that. It's consolation that doesn't lie about what survival costs.

Binyon's rhythm helps it stick. Four lines of iambic pentameter, almost no enjambment, maximum clarity. It sounds like something meant to be memorized and repeated. Which it was, and is.