BINYON, Laurence


For the Fallen

…..
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.
…..


Ypres

On the road to Ypres, on the long road,

Marching strong,

We'll sing a song of Ypres, of her glory

And her wrong.

Proud rose her towers in the old time,

Long ago.

Trees stood on her ramparts, and the water

Lay below.

Shattered are the towers into potsherds--

Jumbled stones.

Underneath the ashes that were rafters

Whiten bones.

Blood is in the cellar where the wine was,

On the floor.

Rats run on the pavement where the wives met

At the door.

But in Ypres there's an army that is biding,

Seen of none.

You'd never hear their tramp nor see their shadow

In the sun.

Thousands of the dead men there are waiting

Through the night,

Waiting for a bugle in the cold dawn

Blown for fight.

Listen when the bugle's calling Forward!

They'll be found,

Dead men, risen in battalions

From underground,

Charging with us home, and through the foemen

Driving fear

Swifter than the madness in a madman,

As they hear

Dead men ring the bells of Ypres

For a sign,

Hear the bells and fear them in the Hunland

Over Rhine!