In Flanders Fields

[Cirque du So-What]

In Flanders Fields

By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)

Canadian Army

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.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Flanders_Fields

[babylonsister]

1. Thank you.

Memories from my youth. A classic poem.

[LostinVA]

2. Always makes me tear up

[Glorfindel]

3. A great poem; thanks for posting

I memorized it at age 12 for a school project, and I've never forgotten it.

[shadowknows69]

4. Hi, not to like, be my own PR guy or anything

Ok, I am. But I'd be honored if y'all would check out this poem about Memorial Day written May 25th 2009 by little ole me.

<http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5716334>

thanks in advance.

P.S. a rec or two would not go amiss either.

[ThatsMyBarack]

5. Touching and classic

:cry: :patriot:

[cali]

6. even as a kid I disliked that poem

granted I grew up with poetry and poets but still... It's so manipulative and war mongering. When it comes to poems of that era about war, give me Wilfred Owen or Sigfried Sassoon.

Anthem For Doomed Youth

What passing bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.<4>

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

7. And, this from a more recent catastrophe.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kiZ-or-Q4Y

Music by Joan Baez, Lyrics by Nina Duscheck

Farewell my wistful Saigon bride
I'm going out to stem the tide
A tide that never saw the seas
It flows through jungles, round the trees
Some say it's yellow, some say red
It will not matter when we're dead

How many dead men will it take
To build a dike that will not break?
How many children must we kill
Before we make the waves stand still?

Though miracles come high today
We have the wherewithal to pay
It takes them off the streets you know
To places they would never go alone
It gives them useful trades
The lucky boys are even paid

Men die to build their Pharoah's tombs
And still and still the teeming wombs
How many men to conquer Mars
How many dead to reach the stars?

Farewell my wistful Saigon bride
I'm going out to stem the tide
A tide that never saw the seas
It flows through jungles, round the trees
Some say it's yellow, some say red
It will not matter when we're dead

[Donald Ian Rankin]

8. A good poem, an awful sentiment.

"We must honour the sacrifices of those who have already died in this cause" is an awful reason to continue fighting for something.

[LittleWoman]

9. One of my favorite poems by Carl Sandburg

Grass

Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.
Shovel them under and let me work--
I am the grass; I cover all.

And pile them high at Gettysburg
And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.
Shovel them under and let me work.
Two years, ten years, and the passengers ask the conductor:
What place is this?
Where are we now?

I am the grass.
Let me work.

Carl Sandburg

I was also looking for one his poems which contains the words to the effect that "what if they had a war and no one came?" I believe it is in a poem with a little girl and her father or grandfather at a parade.

[cwydro]

10. K and R.

I have a book of poems from WW1. Very moving.