For the Fallen - did Binyon mean "condemn" or "contemn"

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn

The ANZAC Day website has raised an interesting debate about Laurence Binyon's 1914 ode, For the Fallen. Every year, after ANZAC Day and Remembrance Day, they apparently get letters asking if the word "condemn" is correct, or whether it should be "contemn", which has much the same meaning.

The Times printed Binyon's poem twice, once when it was written in 1914, and again, on Remembrance Day in 1919. Both times it used the familiar version, condemn.

Some years later, this debate raised its head in the letters page; the exchange does seem to confirm Binyon's intention, but I think it also explains why the question is confined to Australia.

The first letter came from Mr Titchen, from Port Lincoln, South Australia, below, claiming to have been present in the dugout when Binyon wrote the ode, using "contemn".

 

The second, in reply, cites Binyon's own authorised version, published in an anthology in 1927, in which he says there have been some corrections - but not apparently to this poem; as it appeared in The Times, it is titled "For the Fallen", not "Ode", and the word "condemn" is used.

 

 

The ANZAC organisation asks if it isn't time to lay this debate to rest. Perhaps these letters will help to do so.