Famous Poem Remembering Sacrifice

In Flanders Fields
written in 1915 by John McCrae
In Flanders fields the poppies blowBetween the crosses, row on row,That mark our place; and in the skyThe larks, still bravely singing, flyScarce 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 lieIn Flanders fields.Take up our quarrel with the foe:To you from failing hands we throwThe torch; be yours to hold it high.If ye break faith with us who dieWe shall not sleep, though poppies growIn Flanders fields.

Flanders, in north-west Belgium, was the scene of one of the bloodiest battles of the World War I. One of the few things said to have survived the bloodshed was the poppy. Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrea, a Canadian doctor serving on the battlefield, wrote this poem after treating the battle wounded and burying the dead.