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An Ode to Melbourne's Shrine of Remembrance
BY CAROLYN ARGENT
An Ode to Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance was written for the building’s dedication in 1934. Ninety years on, we reflect on its significance.
There are many hidden gems within the walls of the Shrine. Looking back over the 90 years since the Shrine was dedicated, one item that stands out was specially created for the opening of the building.
The then Premier of Victoria, Sir Stanley Argyle, wrote to the British poet Rudyard Kipling, hoping he would pen some suitable verses that could be read out at the dedication ceremony. Kipling agreed and wrote a poem, which was known by various titles but more formally recognised as Ode for Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance.
Kipling was an unsurprising choice to create an ode as he was world renowned in the literary field, being awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1907. Most British and Commonwealth soldiers who served in the First World War were familiar with his poetry and he became the first Literary Advisor to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. The Menin Gate Memorial in Ypres, Belgium, bears an inscription written by Kipling: To the armies of the British Empire who stood here from 1914 to 1918 and to those of their dead who have no known grave.
Kipling was also the composer of the words Their name liveth for evermore on the Stone of Remembrance at various Commonwealth War Grave cemeteries and the words Known unto God, which can be seen on many unknown soldiers’ gravestones. There is a street named after Rudyard Kipling behind the Menin Gate in Belgium, which upholds the link between the memorial and Kipling’s desire to commemorate war.
Beyond his professional accolades, Kipling had a personal connection to the purpose of the Shrine. He was devastated by the death of his son in the First World War and suffered the grief of this loss for the rest of his life. John Kipling, known as Jack, was the third child and only son of Caroline Starr Balestier and Rudyard Kipling. Although he was rejected by both the Army and the Navy for being short-sighted, Rudyard Kipling used his influence within the British Army and John was commissioned into the Irish Guards the day before his 17th birthday in 1914.
Six weeks after arriving in France, on 27 September 1915, John Kipling was reported missing and later presumed dead during the battle of Loos. It wasn’t until the 1990s that a body was found that is believed to be his. Now, John Kipling has a grave bearing his name at St. Mary’s A.D.S. Cemetery, Haisnes, France.
The Victorian Government at the time offered to pay Kipling for his poem, but he declined to accept any money. The Ode was recited by Sir Stanley Argyle at the Dedication of the Shrine of Remembrance on Armistice Day, Sunday 11 November 1934, and was later set in bronze and erected in the Sanctuary of the Shrine where it remains to this day. It stands, 90 years on, as a place to pause and reflect and as testament to those who served, those who sacrificed their lives and those who still serve today.
Kipling’s Ode for Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance reads:
So long as memory, valour, and faith endure
Let these stones witness through the years to come,
How once there was a people fenced secure
Behind great waters girdling a far home.
Their own and their land’s youth ran side by side
Heedless and headlong as their unyoked seas-
Lavish o’er all, and set in stubborn pride
Of judgment nurtured by accepted peace.
Thus, suddenly, war took them-seas and skies
Joined with the earth for slaughter. In a breath
They, scoffing at all talk of sacrifice,
Gave themselves without idle words to death.
Thronging as cities throng to watch a game,
Or their own herds move southward with the year,
Secretly, swiftly, from their ports they came,
So that before half earth had heard their name
Half earth had learned to speak of them with fear;
Because of certain men who strove to reach,
Through the red surf the crest no man might hold,
And gave their name for ever to a beach
Which shall outlive Troy’s tale when Time is old;
Because of horsemen, gathered apart and hid-
Merciless riders whom Megiddo sent forth
When the outflanking hour struck and bid
Them close and bar the drove-roads to the north;
And those who, when men feared the last March flood
Of Western war had risen beyond recall,
Stormed through the night from Amiens and made good,
At their glad cost, the breach that perilled all.
Then they returned to their desired land-
The kindly cities and plains where they were bred-
Having revealed their nation in earth’s sight
So long as sacrifice and honour stand,
And their own sun at the hushed hour shall light
The Shrine of these, their dead!
