In Flanders Fields

In Flanders Fields

by John McCrae

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead.  Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved, and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

Comments

[Aaron]

This was a perennial of Remembrance Day when I was growing up in Canada. It is worthy of note that, three years after penning this poem and while still at war, medical officer John McCrae died of pneumonia - one of the diseases that claimed enormous numbers of lives among the troops who battled in the trenches of WWI.