The ‘Ode of Remembrance’ by Laurence Binyonís is taken from the poem ‘For the Fallen’ (1914), most notably the fourth stanza.

Laurence Binyon (1869-1943), was a poet, dramatist and art scholar. Born in Lancaster in 1869 he was educated at St Paul's School and Trinity College, Oxford where he won the Newdigate poetry prize. He worked at the British Museum where he developed an expertise in Chinese and Japanese art.

Although he was to old to enlist during World War I, he served with the Red Cross, during which time he was to visit the Front in 1916.

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