Poppies marking the fallen in world wars outside Westminster Abbey, cathedral, London, UK.

Today, November 11, is Remembrance Day – a time to commemorate individuals in the armed forces who lost their lives in the line of duty.

Millions of Britons will be wearing poppies to pay their respects, as well as taking part in a two-minute silence at 11am.

As usual it will be followed on Sunday by a national memorial service at the Cenotaph attended by the prime minister, members of the Royal Family and MPs, followed by the veterans’ parade through central London.

To mark the day, we take a look at some of the most poignant poems and messages written in memory of those who lost their lives in war.

Remembrance Sunday quotes and poems

A First World War cemetery and Memorial to the Missing near Ypres in Belgium (Picture: Getty)

For The Fallen by Laurence Binyon

One of Britain’s most famous wartime poems, Laurence Binyon ‘For The Fallen’ – also known as Ode To Remember – was first published in September 1914, just a couple of months into the First World War.

While he was too old to enlist at the time, Binyon would go on to volunteer his services in a military hospital in France and would GOP on to write about his experiences in books and further poems.

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.

In Flanders Field by John McCrae

John McCrae was a Canadian physician who fought across the First World War, who died of Punomina in 1918 while serving in France.

An accomplished poet, author and artist as well as a skilled surgeon, McCrae’s most famous work, In Flanders Field, was published in May 1915 and is written from the perspective of fallen soldiers lying in their graves.

Legend has it, fellow soldiers retrieved the poem after McCrae himself was dissatisfied with it – it is now one of the most quoted poems to have been written in wartime.

If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Hallowed Ground by Thomas Campbell

Thomas Campbell was a Scottish poet who lived from 1777 to 1844.

He wrote many patriotic war songs, lines of which have been taken as a means of remembering those that have fallen across the history of Britain’s conflicts.

To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die.

Charge of the Light Brigade by Lord Tennyson

Alfred, Lord Tennyson, was an English poet and the Poet Laureate during most of Queen Victoria’s reign.

He wrote many epic narrative poems focusing on the conflicts of the time, with one of his most famous being The Charge Of The Light Brigade, published in 1854.

It depicts the events that took place at the Battle of Balaclava during the Crimean War, which is one of the most brutal disasters in British military history.

Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die.
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

The Charge Of The Light Brigade occurred in 1854 (Picture: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

The Soldier by Rupert Brooke

Rupert Brooke was a part of the British Mediterranean Expeditionary Force during the First World War, and died while in service in 1915.

If I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England.

MCMXIV by Philip Larkin

Published in 1964, this poem from English writer Philip Larkin is a single sentence spread over four stanzas and describes the experience of young men enlisting for The Great War in 1914.

Never such innocence,
Never before or since,
As changed itself to past
Without a word – the men
Leaving the gardens tidy,
The thousands of marriages,
Lasting a little while longer:
Never such innocence again.

And Death Shall Have No Dominion by Dylan Thomas

A volunteer helps to set up the Westminster Abbey Field of Remembrance (Picture: Thomas Krych/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Welsh poet Dylan Thomas penned And Death Shall Have No Dominion in 1933, in between the First and Second World War.

It is an expression of remembrance and the idea that death is not the end.

Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.

An Irish Airman Foresees His Death by WB Yeats

Written by Irish poet WB Yeats in 1918, this poem highlights the contribution made by Irish soldiers fighting for Britain during The Great War, during a period when they were also trying to establish independence for Ireland.

I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love;
My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.

Dulce et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen

Wilfred Owen is widely regarded as one of the best poets of the First World War, often depicting the conflict in its true horror.

Owen himself died in action on November 4 1918, almost exactly a week before the Armistice was signed, with much of his work being published posthumously after the war was over.

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.

Adlestrop by Edward Thomas

Written by British poet Edward Thomas, Adlestrop recounts a train journey he took just before the outbreak of the First World War.

While not strictly about war, it has become associated with wartime poetry due to its depiction of a peaceful scene observed just months before the impending conflict that would go on to change countless lives.

Thomas himself was killed in action in 1917.

And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and round him, mistier,
Farther and farther, all the birds
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.

Your King And Country Need You by Paul Reubens

Your King And Your Country Need You was a song first written in 1914 and was initially designed with the intention of persuading men to volunteer to fight in the War.

Oh! we don’t want to lose you but we think you ought to go

For your King and your Country both need you so;

We shall want you and miss you but with all our might and main

We shall cheer you, thank you, kiss you when you come back again.

Extract from The Old Issue by Rudyard Kipling

Here is a well-known quote often shared to commemorate the lives of fallen soldiers came from Rudyard Kipling’s The Old Issue.

When you go home, tell them of us and say, for their tomorrow we gave our today.