Technically it’s Saturday, but the day is so appropriate for this one. Sunday Sonnets 1 is on hold; sorry, but I’m not happy with what I’ve written. I’ll work on it over time.
In Flanders Fields
Lt. Colonel John Alexander McCrae, M.D.
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.
The multitalented John McCrae was a Canadian poet, artist, author, physician, professor, surgeon, and soldier who served in the Canadian Army during the Boer War and World War I.
After interning at Johns Hopkins, and being offered a fellowship at McGill, he interrupted his medical work to serve in the Boer War in 1899. Though he said little, his African war experiences had clearly left him with complex feelings about war. While he still believed in the necessity of fighting to right wrongs, he was appalled at the brutality and suffering of soldiers, especially wounded soldiers. He resigned his commission as Major in 1904.
He published papers, continued to write poetry, traveled, drew, taught, and, of course, wound up serving again, as a field surgeon in World War I, serving on the Western front.
Over a horrific period in spring 1915, the Germans started using chemical weapons against Canadian troops. Casualties were terribly high, and McCrae insisted on living and working right at the front.to treat the wounded as rapidly as he could. He wrote his mother:
The general impression in my mind is of a nightmare. We have been in the most bitter of fights. For seventeen days and seventeen nights none of us have had our clothes off, nor our boots even, except occasionally. In all that time while I was awake, gunfire and rifle fire never ceased for sixty seconds ….. And behind it all was the constant background of the sights of the dead, the wounded, the maimed, and a terrible anxiety lest the line should give way.
On May the second, a student he’d mentored died: Lt. Alexis Helmer of Ottawa. There was not much left to bury; he was killed by an artillery shell. What there was, was gathered in a bag, fastened with safety pins. With no chaplain, and safety forbidding light, McCrae officiated at a brief funeral service, doing his Presbyterian best to remember the Anglican order of service, and Helmer was buried along with the rest.
On the evening of May the third, McCrae spent 20 minutes and wrote this poem.
Lt. Col. Edward Morrison, the CO at the scene described it (I thank Rob Ruggenberg for much of this content):
“This poem was literally born of fire and blood during the hottest phase of the second battle of Ypres. My headquarters were in a trench on the top of the bank of the Ypres Canal, and John had his dressing station in a hole dug in the foot of the bank. During periods in the battle men who were shot actually rolled down the bank into his dressing station.
Along from us a few hundred yards was the headquarters of a regiment, and many times during the sixteen days of battle, he and I watched them burying their dead whenever there was a lull. Thus the crosses, row on row, grew into a good-sized cemetery.
Just as he describes, we often heard in the mornings the larks singing high in the air, between the crash of the shell and the reports of the guns in the battery just beside us.
I have a letter from him in which he mentions having written the poem to pass away the time between the arrival of batches of wounded, and partly as an experiment with several varieties of poetic metre.”
The poem itself is a rondeau; a French form of poetry with a fixed, stylized form: 3 stanzas: a quintet, a quatrain, and a sextet. (Fancy words meaning 5 lines of poetry, 4 lines, 6 lines). The rhyming scheme is of the form A(R) A B B R, A A B R, and A A B B A R, where A represents one 8 syllable phrase ending in a particular rhyme, and B represents a different 8 syllable phrase ending in a different rhyme. The refrain, R, is typically based upon the opening line of the poem, but this need not be. It typically is also only 4 syllables, but some practitioners of the form differ.
The constrictions of the form are intended as a challenge to the poet to express himself/herself succinctly and poignantly. You can judge for yourself the degree to which he succeeded.
The third verse was often used by jingoistic governments to stir up patriotic fervor in support of that war, and future wars. Personally, I believe there is such a thing as just war, and that sometimes sacrifices — terrible sacrifices — must be made. But to simply quote that third verse in an ad for Victory Bonds, or in support of future wars without being very aware of the Hell on earth that McCrae and others endured would be a terrible act.
On November 11, we remember those who served, those who sacrificed, and those who have gone on before us.
With thanks to Rob Ruggenberg’s fine page on In Flanders Fields, Wikipedia, and Veterans Affairs Canada.
