During World War I, John McCrae, a Canadian doctor and soldier, tended the wounded and dying at the Second Battle of Ypres in the Flanders area of Belgium as the Canadians held their ground against chlorine gas attacks. When a close friend was killed and buried in a quick grave marked with a plain wooden cross, John McCrae wrote the poem In Flanders Fields.
First published in Punch magazine in 1915, the poem In Flanders Fields has become an abiding symbol of remembrance worldwide.
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.
~John McCrae, 1915
