Robert Laurence Binyon - For the Fallen - Montgomery City, MO
Posted by: YoSam.
N 38° 58.747 W 091° 30.274
15S E 629533 N 4315522
Poem from the Great War...entire poem in the link at the bottom...
Waymark Code: WM12CTN
Location: Missouri, United States
Date Posted: 04/30/2020
Views: 3
County of memorial: Montgomery County
Location of memorial: E. 3rd St., courthouse lawn, Montgomery City
Memorial erected by: Montgomery County Historical Society
Date memorial erected: Summer 2001
Text on the monument:
Front: In Memory of Those From Montgomery County Who Died While in Military Service During America's Wars
Back: 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.
"Laurence Binyon composed his best known poem while sitting on the cliff-top looking out to sea from the dramatic scenery of the north Cornish coastline. A plaque marks the location at Pentire Point, north of Polzeath. However, there is also a small plaque on the East Cliff north of Portreath, further south on the same north Cornwall coast, which also claims to be the place where the poem was written.
"The poem was written in mid September 1914, a few weeks after the outbreak of the First World War. During these weeks the British Expeditionary Force had suffered casualties following its first encounter with the Imperial German Army at the Battle of Mons on 23 August, its rearguard action during the retreat from Mons in late August and the Battle of Le Cateau on 26 August, and its participation with the French Army in holding up the Imperial German Army at the First Battle of the Marne between 5 and 9 September 1914.
"Laurence said in 1939 that the four lines of the fourth stanza came to him first. These words of the fourth stanza have become especially familiar and famous, having been adopted by the Royal British Legion as an Exhortation for ceremonies of Remembrance to commemorate fallen Servicemen and women.
"Laurence Binyon was too old to enlist in the military forces but he went to work for the Red Cross as a medical orderly in 1916. He lost several close friends and his brother-in-law in the war." ~ The Great War