Robert Laurence Binyon

Men of Verdun

VERDUN
MEN OF VERDUN
THERE are five men in the moonlight
That by their shadows stand;
Three hobble humped on crutches,
And two lack each a hand.

Frogs at Verdun

Real detail from the battlefield. Verdun's chalky soil had pools where frogs bred—soldiers wrote home about their croaking during bombardments. Nature continuing while men die.

Frogs somewhere near the roadside
Chorus their chant absorbed:
But a hush breathes out of the dream-light
That far in heaven is orbed.
It is gentle as sleep falling
And wide as thought can span,
The ancient peace and wonder
That brims the heart of man.
Beyond the hills it shines now
On no peace but the dead,
On reek of trenches thunder-shocked,
Tense fury of wills in wrestle locked,
A chaos crumbled red!
The five men in the moonlight
Chat, joke, or gaze apart.
They talk of days and comrades,
But each one hides his heart.
They wear clean cap and tunic,

Clean uniforms

They're in hospital or convalescent dress uniforms, not combat gear. The military keeps up appearances even for men it's broken.

As when they went to war;
A gleam comes where the medal's pinned:
But they will fight no more.
The shadows, maimed and antic,
Gesture and shape distort,
Like mockery of a demon dumb,
Out of the hell-din whence they come,
That dogs them for his sport:
But as if dead men were risen
And stood before me there
With a terrible fame about them blown
In beams of spectral air,
I see them, men transfigured
As in a dream, dilate

Titan-throb

Titans fought the gods in Greek myth. Binyon sees these maimed soldiers as mythological figures—the Battle of Verdun (300+ days, 700,000+ casualties) was the longest of WWI.

Fabulous with the Titan-throb
Of battling Europe's fate;
For history's hushed before them,
And legend flames afresh,—
Verdun, the name of thunder,
Is written on their flesh.

Written on their flesh

Their bodies are the text. Missing hands and hobbled legs spell out 'Verdun' more permanently than any monument could.

Laurence Binyon
Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

Binyon's Double Vision

Binyon structures the poem around a jarring split between what he sees and what he knows. The first half gives us moonlight, frogs, ancient peace—a pastoral scene where five men chat in the evening. Then line 13 breaks it: "Beyond the hills it shines now / On no peace but the dead." That same moon is lighting the ongoing battle at Verdun, where men are dying right now while these five stand safe.

This isn't memory—it's simultaneity. The poem keeps snapping between the peaceful convalescent scene and the "reek of trenches thunder-shocked" still happening miles away. Binyon uses the present tense throughout: the battle "shines now," the shadows "dogs them," history "is hushed." Past and present collapse.

The five men "each one hides his heart"—they joke and chat but won't speak what they've seen. Binyon has to read it in their bodies instead. Their missing hands and crutches are the only honest language left.

Why Verdun Became Myth

CONTEXT The Battle of Verdun (February-December 1916) was designed by German Chief of Staff Erich von Falkenhayn to "bleed France white." He chose Verdun because it was symbolically crucial to France—they'd defend it at any cost. He was right. The French rotated nearly every unit in their army through Verdun; most French soldiers who survived WWI fought there.

Binyon calls it "Verdun, the name of thunder" because by 1917 (when this was likely written), Verdun had already become shorthand for industrial-scale slaughter. The battle consumed men faster than any previous engagement in history. The phrase "They shall not pass" (attributed to General Pétain) became France's rallying cry.

When Binyon writes "history's hushed before them, / And legend flames afresh," he's noting something strange: these men are still alive but already mythological. They're "transfigured," "risen," wrapped in "spectral air." The scale of Verdun was so enormous it turned survivors into walking monuments before they'd even healed. Their "terrible fame" isn't glory—it's the weight of having your body turned into a symbol of national suffering.