Poem for a Sunday

As it's Remembrance Sunday in the UK today. Two poems we traditionally hear around this time. At 11 a.m. (GMT) please take a moment to remember those who gave up their lives so we could have our freedom.

The Soldier by Rupert Brooke (1887-1915)

If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is forever England.
There shall beIn that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England's, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by the suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.


Ode of Remembrance (From For the Fallen by Laurence Binyon (1869-1943))

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.