During this time, long lists of the dead and wounded appeared in British newspapers. By mid-September 1914, less than seven weeks after the outbreak of war, the British Expeditionary Force in France had already suffered severe casualties. The lines comprise the fourth stanza of the poem For the Fallen by Laurence Binyon, and were written in the bleak early days of World War 1. At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them.ĭVA’s Commemorations Branch has been researching the poem and its background. They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:Īge shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. Contemn means to ‘despise or treat with disregard’, so both words fit the context. The issue raised by most letters is whether the last word of the second line should be ‘condemn’ or ‘contemn’. The Ode: is it ‘condemn’ or ‘contemn’?Įvery year, after ANZAC Day and Remembrance Day, the Department of Veterans’ Affairs receives many letters asking about The Ode. This verse, which became the Ode for the Returned and Services League, has been used in association with commemoration services in Australia since 1921. The Ode comes from For the Fallen, a poem by the English poet and writer Laurence Binyon and was published in London in The Winnowing Fan: Poems of the Great War in 1914. 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 This 60 cm x 90 cm framed message, a poignant tribute to the Australian serviceman, hangs in the former offices of the Queensland State Headquarters of the RSL located in a room under the Shrine of Remembrance. I died for a cause I held just in the service of my land. no name marks my tomb, for I am every Australian serviceman. lived with the damned in the place cursed with the name Changi. crashed in the flaming wreckage of a fighter in New Guinea. in a blazing destroyer exploding on the North Sea. the chaotic maelstrom of Australia’s blooding. I saw the going down of the sun on that first ANZAC Day. and the weird contortions of death sculptured in Australian flesh. a landscape pockmarked with war’s inevitable litter. I crouched in a shallow trench on that hell of exposed beaches. (Image from Tom Curran’s book Across the Bar) (Above) The Ataturk Memorial at Ari Burnu on the Gallipoli Peninsula. After having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well. You, the mothers, who sent their sons from faraway countries wipe away your tears your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours. You are now living in the soil of a friendly country therefore rest in peace. Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives. Like them, remember that prosperity can be only for the free, that freedom is the sure possession of those alone who have the courage to defend it.Įngraved forever at ANZAC Cove (see image below) are these words from Kemal Ataturk, the Commander of the Turkish 19th Division during the Gallipoli Campaign and the first President of the Turkish Republic from 1924-1938: Monuments may rise and tablets be set up to them in their own land, but on far-off shores there is an abiding memorial that no pen or chisel has traced it is graven not on stone or brass, but on the living hearts of humanity. For the whole earth is the sepulchre of heroes. The following was written by Pericles well over two thousand years ago, long before the first ANZAC Day, but only a stone’s throw from Gallipoli:Įach has won a glorious grave - not that sepulchre of earth wherein they lie, but the living tomb of everlasting remembrance wherein their glory is enshrined.
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