In honour of forthcoming Remembrance Day, we’re sharing some poignant poems to help you mark the day and remember the fallen.
Remembrance
For ever young, in Flanders field they lie,
In peace in silent seas, on foreign shore,
In place with name unknown, in land unseen;
And we, perhaps forgetting, walk on by
Their sad memorials, and think no more
Of lives now passed, and lives that might have been.
In park and green and village marketplace
They stand, these ageing monuments – and we
Look past the loving tributes carved thereon
And never slack or slow our hurried pace
To call to mind the fading memory
Of these young men, much missed, though now long gone.
So let us now, at least, some moments take
To read the names of honoured dead, long lost
To grieving parents, children, sweethearts, wives,
The names of men who never more will wake,
Who bought us – at what sad and painful cost –
Our freedom, and indeed our very lives.
— H. Meyer
First published in The People’s Friend November 3, 2018.
A Candle Of Peace
Light a candle of peace for all nations
And watch as it steadily burns.
Remember the brave fallen heroes –
Those who will never return.
In the quietness, pray for all families,
Wherever they are in the world,
Whose lives have been scarred by violence and pain,
As the banners of battle unfurled.
Light a candle of peace for all races,
All cultures and creeds of mankind,
Ask God to touch every heart with his love
So, in days to come, we will find
Peace for the whole world over,
No longer a dream or a prayer,
But something to last to the end of all time,
For the great heart of God will be there.
— Marian Cleworth
First published in The People’s Friend November 6, 2021.
Read a Remembrance Day story from the “Friend”.
