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 agoWe 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.
This poem was written by Lieutenant – Colonel
John McCrae, a Canadian physician, after the death of his friend Lieutenant
Alexis Helmer, on May 2nd 1915.
A plaque containing the poem can be found on the
wall of a concrete bunker that was used as a field hospital.
Not far away, in graveyards throughout the
area, thousands of simple white headstones carry the names of the war dead.
For those British and Commonwealth soldiers
whose graves are unknown, the Menin Gate Memorial to the Missing in Ypres,
Belgium, is dedicated to them. The walls of this memorial bear thousands of names.
The ‘Last Post’ is played at the Menin Gate every
evening.