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

At the drowsy dusk when the shadows
From the golden west, where the sunbeams sleep,
An angel mused:  "Is there good or
In the mad world's heart, since on Calvary's hill'Round the cross a mid-day twilight

Amid my books I lived the hurrying years,
Disdaining kinship with my fellow man;
Alike to me were human smiles and tears,
I cared not whither Earth's great life-stream ran,

If night should come and find me at my toil,
When all Life's day I had, tho' faintly, wrought,
And shallow furrows, cleft in stony soil Were all my labour:  Shall I count it
If only one poor gleaner, weak of hand,

There stands a hostel by a travelled way;
Life is the road and Death the worthy host;
Each guest he greets, nor ever lacks to say, "How have ye fared
" They answer him, the most,"This lodging place is other than we so...

Beneath her window in the fragrant night I half forget how truant years have
Since I looked up to see her chamber-light,
Or catch, perchance, her slender shadow
Upon the casement; but the nodding leaves Sweep lazily across the unlit...

I saw a King, who spent his life to weave Into a nation all his great heart thought,
Unsatisfied until he should achieve The grand ideal that his manhood sought;
Yet as he saw the end within his reach,
Death took the sceptre from hi...

"What I spent I had; what I saved,
I lost; what I gave,
I have
"But yesterday the tourney, all the eager joy of life,      The waving of the banners, and the rattle of the spears,

He wrought in poverty, the dull grey days,
But with the night his little lamp-lit
Was bright with battle flame, or through a haze Of smoke that stung his eyes he heard the
Of Bluecher's guns; he shared Almeida's scars,

My lover died a century ago,
Her dear heart stricken by my sland'rous breath,
Wherefore the Gods forbade that I should know            The peace of death
Men pass my grave, and say, "'Twere well to sleep,

Scarlet coats, and crash o' the band, The grey of a pauper's gown, A soldier's grave in Zululand, And a woman in Brecon Town
My little lad for a soldier boy, (Mothers o' Brecon Town
)My eyes for tears and his for joy When he went from Br...

O guns, fall silent till the dead men hear Above their heads the legions pressing on:(These fought their fight in time of bitter fear,
And died not knowing how the day had gone
)O flashing muzzles, pause, and let them see The coming dawn...

In Flanders’ Fields the poppies
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the
The larks, still bravely singing,

Ye have sung me your songs, ye have chanted your rimes (I scorn your beguiling,
O sea
)Ye fondle me now, but to strike me betimes
(A treacherous lover, the sea

I saw two sowers in Life's field at morn,
To whom came one in angel guise and said,"Is it for labour that a man is born
Lo:  I am Ease
Come ye and eat my bread

Amid earth's vagrant noises, he caught the note sublime:
To-day around him surges from the silences of TimeA flood of nobler music, like a river deep and broad,
Fit song for heroes gathered in the banquet-hall of God