The memorial, that is inscribed into
white stone above the centre ground floor window, reads:
To the Glory of
God
And in Memory of Old Boys of this School who fell in the
Great War
1914 - 1918.
"At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, we will
remember them"
Erected February 1928, by past and present
scholars
There is no indication as to the name
of the former school, that now serves another purpose, but an inscription,
higher up the building, indicates the original schools were built here in 1808
and were enlarged and re-stored in 1859.
The inscription is from the poem "The
Fallen" by Laurence Binyon. The
Western Front Association website tells us:
"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".
These very famous words are just a
part of a poem by Laurence Binyon that he called The Fallen. It was first
published in the Times newspaper on 21 September 1914. As this was very early in
the war, it was written as a reaction to the high casualty rates of the British
Expeditionary Force at Mons and Le Cateau, but the four famous lines have now
taken an existence of their own that apply to all war
casualties:
British poet and scholar, Laurence
Robert Binyon was born in Lancaster on 10 August 1869. He was educated at
Trinity College, Oxford and won the Newdigate Prize for his poem "Persephone"
whilst there. After university he worked as a curator in the Oriental Department
of the British Museum. Too old to join the BEF, he went to the Western Front as
a Red Cross medical orderly and returned to the British Museum after the war.
After his retirement in 1933, he was appointed Norton Professor of Poetry at
Harvard University followed by the appointment as Byron Professor of English
Literature at Athens University. In his lifetime, he wrote numerous works on Far
Eastern Art, several plays, a translation of Divine Comedy by Dante and the
first part of an Arthurian trilogy called The Madness of Merlin, the latter only
published in 1947 after he had died.
He died on 10 March 1943 and is
buried at Saint Mary's Church, Aldworth, Berkshire.
For The Fallen:
With proud thanksgiving, a mother
for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her
flesh they were, spirit of 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 condemn.
At
the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember
them.
They mingle not with 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.
Laurence Robert Binyon,
1869-1943