Poppies
Flanders Fields has become one of the best known and most recited poems in the world. I wonder how many know it’s background.
It was written by a Canadian soldier, John McCrae, in the trenches in 1915 during the second battle of Ypres were there were 6000 Caanadian casualtties in 48 hour, some of them close friends.
McCrae was born in Gueolph. Ontario in 1872. He was a doctor and a soldie and served in the South African War as an artillery subaltern. After graduating from medical school, he set up practice as a pathologist.
As soon as canada entered World War I, he enlisted and was appointed as a field surgeon in the Canadian artillery in charge of a field hospital in Ypres where he wrote “In Flanders Fields.”
He had suffered all his life from severe asthma and died in 1918 in Bouologne, France of pneumonia.
War Memorial. Ottawa, Canada
In honor of the Canadian Remberance Day and Veterans Day in the U.S., here is “In Flanders Fields” by John McCrae.
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- In Flanders Fields
- 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…
Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Arlington
