Remembrance Day – In Flanders Fields Poem

Monday, November 11, 2013, is Remembrance Day in Canada.
Remembrance Day commemorates the sacrifices of people in all armed conflicts. Many people wear commemorative poppies on their clothes in the weeks before Remembrance Day. Red poppies symbolize the memory of those who died.The use of the poppy as a symbol of remembrance comes from a poem written by John McCrae, a Canadian doctor serving in the military. The poem is called In Flanders Fields and describes the poppies growing in the graveyards where soldiers were buried.

“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.

By Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae.

Composed at the battlefront on May 3, 1915, during the second battle of Ypres, Belgium.

Photo source: Google images