"Ode to Remembrance" from Five Poems From the Great War (2018) by Colin Eatock

Five Poems From the Great War (2018) was composed to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. For this a cappella choral song-cycle, I chose texts by the English poets Robert Nichols, Harold Monro and Laurence Binyon, the American Alan Seeger, and a New Zealander identified only as “M.R.”

Binyon was too old to enlist in the British Army, but he served as an orderly in field hospitals in France. Excerpts from his poem “For the Fallen” are often presented under the title “Ode To Remembrance.” Here, I have chosen the second, third and sixth stanzas.

The performers are the Collegium Ancora of Providence RI, conducted by Vince Edwards. The recording engineer is Brad Kleyla.

TEXT

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.

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.