“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.”
This traditional recitation on ANZAC Day is the Ode, the fourth stanza of the poem “For the fallen” by Laurence Binyon (1869–1943). It was selected in 1919 to accompany the unveiling of the London Cenotaph and, like so many memorial traditions, passed into common use across the Commonwealth. Its use on ANZAC Day might have originated with the Queensland ANZAC Day Commemoration Committee, which placed it on the cover of a collection of sermons and addresses for ANZAC Day published in 1921. It was also used at the laying of the Inauguration Stone at the Memorial in 1929.
The Lone Charger
Memorial parades are often led by a lone, rider-less horse, with a pair of boots pointing backwards in the saddle's stirrups. An ancient tradition has it that Saxon people used to bury a great warrior's horse with him so that it could serve him in the afterlife. This practice was continued in some European countries until the late eighteenth century. In modern memorial parades, the horse is led along as part of its master's funeral procession; with his boots, like the arms of his soldiers, reversed as a sign of respect. In some ANZAC Day parades a lone charger his incorporated as an additional symbol of respect and mourning, often for the men of the light horse brigades.
