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
World War I poem by Lt-Colonel John McCrae
John McCrae 1872-1918 was a Canadian physician, soldier, and poet. He contributed
verses to Canadian periodicals before WWI. But he did not become famous
until 1915 when he published 'In Flanders Fields' in Punch, an English
magazine. His poems were published after his death under the title
'IN FLANDERS FIELDS, AND OTHER POEMS'(1919).
McCrae was born at Guelph, Ontario, and was graduated from the University
of Toronto. In 1900, he became a pathologist at McGill Univ and at Montreal
General Hospital. As the chief medical officer at a general hospital in
Boulogne, France, in WWI, he witnessed the suffering and death he wrote
about. He died of pneumonia 10 months before the end of WWI.
Written by Desmond Pacey, in the World Book Encyclopedia.