"O Valiant Hearts"—The Remembrance Day Hymn

British Regimental Memorial, Newcastle

James Patton

The iconic hymn sung each year on Remembrance Day (11 November), particularly at Church of England (C of E) services in the United Kingdom and the British Commonwealth, is "O Valiant Hearts."

O valiant hearts who to your glory came

Through dust of conflict and through battle flame;

Tranquil you lie, your knightly virtue proved,

Your memory hallowed in the land you loved.

Proudly you gathered, rank on rank, to war

As who had heard God’s message from afar;

All you had hoped for, all you had, you gave,

To save mankind—yourselves you scorned to save.

Splendid you passed, the great surrender made;

Into the light that nevermore shall fade;

Deep your contentment in that blest abode,

Who wait the last clear trumpet call of God.

The words are by Sir John Stanhope Arkwright (1872–1954), published in 1919 in his work entitled The Supreme Sacrifice and Other Poems in Time of War. Arkwright was a younger son of a landed family in Herefordshire. Although while at Oxford he won the Newdigate Prize for English Poetry in 1895, he was primarily a politician and bureaucrat who only dabbled in poetry.

The music was composed by the Rev. Dr. Charles Harris, MA, DD (1865–1936) who was the Vicar of St. James the Great Parish, Colwall, which is about 20 miles from Arkwright’s family home at Hampton Court Castle, Bodenham (different from Henry VIII’s Hampton Court Palace, outside of London). Although Rev. Harris was a prolific author, this is his only known musical work. 

Arkwright’s text is occasionally performed to music of Edward J. Hopkins (1818–1901), which was written ca. 1869 for John Ellerton’s (1826–1893) C of E hymn titled "Saviour, Again to Thy Dear Name" as well as at least four other hymn tunes, including the well-known "Abide with Me" by William H. Monk (1823–1889).

It is believed that Rev. Harris was moved to set his music to Arkwright’s text to create a memorial to his son.  Lt. Charles Noël Harris (1898–1917), 125th Napier’s Rifles, was killed in action in Mesopotamia during the Samarrah Offensive in 1917. Young Charles had left Hereford Cathedral School to be commissioned in the Indian Army in July 1915. Of his death, his parents were told: “Your son was killed at Salabulah on 21st April. At the time he was hit he was engaged as Acting Adjutant and was carrying a message to the front line from the Commanding Officer. He was hit in the stomach and death was almost instantaneous. I wrote to you before, but the letter must have been lost. He was a promising young officer and his death is much regretted.”

Samarrah was captured on 23 April. Charles Harris’s grave was subsequently lost. He is commemorated on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s Basra Memorial in Iraq, which in 1998 was relocated by the Iraqis from the Basra waterfront to a desert site in Al-Zubair District, near a key road junction that was the site of battles in 1991 and 2003, the latter skirmish involving the 1st battalion The Black Watch.  In addition to a lot of detail repairs needed at the memorial, the CWGC has to add about 30,000 names of Indian ORs and Followers that hadn’t been catalogued as of 1929. This will be a major task, as there are currently 40,635 names on the memorial.

Commission Staff at the Relocated Basra Memorial

Sources include the Western Front Association (UK) and the Hereford Cathedral School