Remembrance Day

[gryphon]

For those who stood

We stand

For those who fell


We remember



For those who sacrificed


We observe


For those who built


We are grateful


For those who gave all


We give


For those who died unnamed



We honor



For those who gave the future


We continue

[Darth Penguin]

https://www.theweek.co.uk/59798/the-...orld-war-poems

If I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is forever England. There shall be
In 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.

[Darth Penguin]

Ralph McTell featuring Sir Billy Connelly

The Unknown Soldier

[Darth Penguin]

Funeral of the Unknown Warrior 1920

[Darth Penguin]

Simon Armitage The Bed

THE BED
by Simon Armitage

Sharp winds scissor and scythe those plains.
And because you are broken and sleeping rough
in a dirt grave, we exchange the crude wooden cross
for the hilt and blade of a proven sword;
to hack through the knotted dark of the next world,
yes, but to lean on as well at a stile or gate
looking out over fens or wealds or fells or wolds.
That sword, drawn from a king’s sheath,
fits a commoner’s hand, and is yours to keep.
And because frost plucks at the threads
of your nerves, and your bones stew in the rain,
bedclothes of zinc and oak are trimmed
and tailored to fit. Sandbags are drafted in,
for bolstering limbs and pillowing dreams,
and we throw in a fistful of battlefield soil:
an inch of the earth, your share of the spoils.

The heavy sheet of stone is Belgian marble
buffed to a high black gloss, the blanket
a flag that served as an altar cloth. Darkness
files past, through until morning, its head bowed.
Molten bullets embroider incised words.
Among drowsing poets and dozing saints
the tall white candles are vigilant sentries
presenting arms with stiff yellow flames;
so nobody treads on the counterpane,
but tiptoeing royal brides in satin slippers
will dress and crown you with luminous flowers.

All this for a soul
without name or rank or age or home, because you
are the son we lost, and your rest is ours.

[avoncallingu]

Thank-you, Darth, for sharing. Very touching. Very moving.