"In Flanders Fields" sounds so anti-war, until you get to the last stanza. [View All]

[raccoon]

In Flanders Fields
By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army

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.


“Do you think if the dead could speak to us they would cry out for yet more war dead as this poem suggests? I don’t think so. They would say it’s time to stop the killing…”

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/05/30/1535/

Someone posted this in response to Garrison Keillor’s article “Telling Lies Over Good Soldiers’ Graves”
on commondreams.org today.


I can only guess the reason the tone changes is because the writer was a soldier and still alive. He didn't want to believe that so many men were dying for nothing.