Remembrance Day 2023: Famous war poems and quotes that reflect on the loss of life in our armed forces

Remembrance - an annual event in November in the UK - offers a chance to commemorate those who died defending the UK in military service. It's a tradition that dates back to 1919 as the First World War came to end the year before.

Poppies are usually worn as a mark of respect and the Royal British Legion runs a Poppy Appeal to support serving and ex-servicemen and women, along with their families. There is also a televised event that takes place at The Cenotaph in London as a part of a parade where leaders - including the monarch - lay wreaths of poppies on Remembrance Sunday.

In 1919, King George requested that the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month should always be remembered. One way many choose the mark the occasion is by reading war poems and hymns that help paint vivid pictures of scenes of conflict.

Many war poems were written by military personnel who had witnessed the horrors of World War I. NationalWorld takes a look at a selection below - including some poignant quotes.

In Flanders Fields by John McCrae

In Flanders Fields, the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie,

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

Ode of Remembrance (For the Fallen) by Robert Laurence Binyon

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.

Dulce et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,

Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,

And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,

But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;

Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots

Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling

And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—

Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,

As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight,

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace

Behind the wagon that we flung him in,

And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,

His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est

Pro patria mori.

The Soldier by Rupert Brooke

If I should die, think only this of me:

That there’s some corner of a foreign field

That is for ever 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 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.

Remembrance Quotes

"All we have of freedom, all we use or know - / This our fathers bought for us long and long ago." - Rudyard Kipling, The Old Issue

"The legacy of heroes is the memory of a great name and the inheritance of a great example." - Benjamin Disraeli, speech to the House of Commons, February 1, 1849

"When you go home, tell them of us and say, for their tomorrow we gave our today." - John Maxwell Edmonds