We will remember them

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.

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.

For the fallen - Laurence Binyon

Ninety years ago today, at 11:00 am (GMT) Armistice Day was marked and an unknown soldier was buried amongst the rulers, nobles and highest of this land. A place of honour for an unknown man. Class, age and education levelled by death through service.

Armistice Day (11th Nov), and Remembrance Sunday, do not glorify war, not does it gloss over the errors and the wasteful losses of life that occurred - but it remembers the fact that as long as men and women wear uniforms of their nation's forces and are willing to 'march away' to combat wrong and to support the oppressed, we have some vestige of hope in this troubled world.

For our future - they gave their present, let's us honour that.