24/04/2024
The Ode:
"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."
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. The verse, which became the League Ode, was already used in association with commemoration services in Australia in 1921.
Each year after Anzac Day and Remembrance Day debate rises on the word 'condemn' or 'contemn'. The Ode used is the fourth stanza of the poem For the Fallen by Laurence Binyon and was written in the early days of World War One. By mid September 1914, less than seven weeks after the outbreak of war, the British Expeditionary Force in France had already suffered severe casualties. Long lists of the dead and wounded appeared in British newspapers. It was against this background that Binyon wrote For the Fallen. The poem was first published in The Times on 21 September 1914.
