'In Flanders Fields'

Memorial Day will be lost to grilling and swimming and picnics in abundance. But at one point it memorialized something more than the end of spring.

'In Flanders Fields' was, at one point, the most notable of war poems ever written. Now, a century after it was penned by Canadian physician Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae during the throes of World War One, the poem is less fashionable, less taught, less remembered than during its release, but never less important.


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.