In Flanders Fields

John McCrae

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.

Written by a Canadian army doctor at Ypres in May 1915, after a friend's burial. The dead speak. McCrae died of pneumonia in January 1918.

Source: John McCrae, first published in Punch (December 8, 1915), from In Flanders Fields and Other Poems (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1919). Text: Project Gutenberg. Public domain in the US.

Public domain in the United States.