O valiant hearts, who to your glory came

O valiant hearts, who to your glory came. (Sir) John Stanhope Arkwright* (1872-1954). Published in leaflet form in 1917, and sung at a service in Westminster Abbey on 5 August 1917 to mark the third anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War. It was written to be sung to the tune by Charles Harris (1865-1936), rector of Colwall, Herefordshire (see below). It had been first sung at an unveiling of a plaque at Colwall to Harris’s son in April 1917. He had been killed in Mesopotamia. It was printed in newspapers at the time (five stanzas appeared in The Times, 3 August 1917). It was printed in Arkwright’s The Supreme Sacrifice, and Other Poems in Time of War (1919), and in a collection...

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