New-York tribune., 1918-10-06
In Flanders Fields

In Flanders Fields
Two poems have by common consent
been accorded prominence among the
verse inspired by this war These are
'The Soldier" the unforgettablc tribute
to his native England, by Rupert Brooke,
who died at Gallipoli and 81 Have a Rem
devious With Death," by Alan Seeger,
which rendezvous the young American
unf1inchingly kept on battlefield of
France
There is third poem, with which our
readers are familiar, worthy to rank with
these two, poem that embodied in
verse the white hot ideals of a man with
whom literature was not vocation but
an avocation. "In Flanders Fields" came
from the pen of Lieutenant Colonel John
McCrae, Canadian physician of dis
tinctlon. The poem was written in a
hospital close behind the front in the
little leisure that was his between the
demands of his desperately wounded pa
tlents. He died in his own hospital,
victim of pneumonia. "In Flanders
Fields was reprinted in these columns
shortly after its first publication in Eng
land. There are still constant requests
for its text, and we give it's brief stan
zas again:
In Flanders fields the poppes grow,
Between the crosses, row on row.
That mark our place; while in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing fly
unheard amid the guns.
We arc the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunsets glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up quarrel with the foe.
10 you from falling hands we throw
The torch. Be yours to bear it high
If ye break faith with US who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies blow
In Flanders fields
The poet left no hint as to the source
of his inspiration, but there is little
doubt that he found it in the legend that
the poppies Of Flanders bloom more
crimson and plentiful when they spring
above the graves of fallen soldiers.
Mention has been made again and again
in this war of the poppies that have
ensanguined the fields of flanders after
they have known the scarlet dive of
human life blood, Correspondents who
commented on the profusion with which
TINS Hover, with its suggestive hue, COW
cred the ground were only repeating an
observation made frequently in the cen
turles that have seen this region the
battlefield of Europe. AS far back as
the battle of Landen, fought between
the English and French in 1893. the
phenomenon was noted An Englishman.
visiting the battlefield the followinp
summer, described in letter home the
spreading waves of peoples on the field
that was yet strewn with the wreckage
of battle. Macaulay, writing in his his
tory of that historic struggle. made the
letter the basis for the following para
graph:
Inc next summer the soil fersilized
with 10000 corpses, broke forth into mill
IONS of poppes. The traveller who. on
the road from Saint Iron to Tirlemont
saw that vast field of rich scarlet spread
ing from Landen 10 Neerwinder could
hardly help fancying that the tigurative
prediction OF the Hebrew prophet was lit
orally accomplished, that the earth was
discharging her blood and refusing 70
cover the slain.
After Waterloo the poppies again
spread their crimson cove~let above the
dead. The blossoms, marked in the CEN
ire with the sign of the cross, which
legend says symbolizes the blood which
drlpped into them from the pierced feet
OF Jesus, have had much cause since
1914 to blow between those other crosses
row on row. War takes our best il
has been SO often said and the pity is
that those who first lifted the torch
could not live to see its light beginning
to shine with a surer radiance. Let it
be hoped that it is given to the poet
soldier surgeon and those who sleep with
him under the crosses, rude wooden
and velvet petalled, to know that the
popples have not bloomed in vain in
Flanders fields.