On this Memorial Day weekend I want to share one of the most memorable war poems ever written.It was inspired by a terrible battle in World War I at Ypres in 1915. The United States was not yet in battle there, but the picture of heartache and war fits any such time. The writer was Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD, Canadian Army. Although he was a doctor and had been in war before, he had never heard or seen anything like those seventeen days at Ypres. One death was especially close to him as a young Lieutenant, and former student, was killed, and buried later the same day in a little cemetery near his treatment tent. In the absence of a chaplain he performed the funeral ceremony. As he took a break the next day he looked across to the cemetery and saw the wild poppies that sprang up in ditches in that part of Europe. In twenty minutes he wrote the fifteen lines of this poem. He later handed it to a young NCO who was moved deeply as he read it. Afterward Doctor McCrae tossed the poem away but it was retrieved by a fellow officer. It found it's way to London and was printed in Punch on December 8, 1915.
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.
Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae MD (1872-1918)
