John McCrae

“ We had our baptism of fire yesterday. They opened on us from the left flank. Their first shell was about 150 yards in front—direction good. The next was 100 yards over; and we thought we were bracketed. Some shrapnel burst over us and scattered on all sides. I felt as if a hail storm was coming down, and wanted to turn my back, but it was over in an instant. The whistle of a shell is unpleasant. You hear it begin to scream; the scream grows louder and louder; it seems to be coming exactly your way; then you realize that it has gone over. Most of them fell between our guns and wagons. ”

“ To-night, I envy him, that he should lie At utter rest.
Slumber Songs I Sleep, little eyes That brim with childish tears amid thy play, Be comforted! No grief of night can weigh Against the joys that throng thy coming day. Sleep, little heart! There is no place in Slumberland for tears: Life soon enough will bring its chilling fears And sorrows that will dim the after years. Sleep, little heart! II Ah, little eyes Dead blossoms of a springtime long ago, That life's storm crushed and left to lie below The benediction of the falling snow! ”

“ Some night to the lee of the land I shall steal,
⁠ (Heigh-ho to be home from the sea!)
No pilot but Death at the rudderless wheel,
⁠ (None knoweth the harbor as he!)
To lie where the slow tide creeps hither and fro
And the shifting sand laps me around, for I know
That my gallant old crew are in Port long ago—
⁠For ever at peace with the sea! ”

“ Along the road, which was constantly shelled "on spec" by the Germans, one saw all the sights of war: wounded men limping or carried, ambulances, trains of supply, troops, army mules, and tragedies. I saw one bicycle orderly: a shell exploded and he seemed to pedal on for eight or ten revolutions and then collapsed in a heap—dead. Straggling soldiers would be killed or wounded, horses also, until it got to be a nightmare. I used to shudder every time I saw wagons or troops on that road. My dugout looked out on it. ”

“ General Buller pushed up the hill as the guns were at work, and afterwards General Hamilton; the one as grim as his pictures, the other looking very happy. The wind blew through us cold like ice as we stood on the hill; as the artillery ceased fire the mist dropped over us chilling us to the bone. We were afraid we should have to spend the night on the hill, but a welcome order came sending us back to camp, a distance of five miles by the roads, as Buller would hold the hill, and our force must march south. ”

“ If there was nothing remarkable about the publication of "In Flanders Fields", there was something momentous in the moment of writing it. And yet it was a sure instinct which prompted the writer to send it to Punch. A rational man wishes to know the news of the world in which he lives; and if he is interested in life, he is eager to know how men feel and comport themselves amongst the events which are passing. For this purpose 'Punch' is the great newspaper of the world, and these lines describe better than any other how men felt in that great moment. ”

“ And he, beside the lonely path he trod, Lay, tombed in splendour, in the House of God.
Eventide The day is past and the toilers cease; The land grows dim 'mid the shadows grey, And hearts are glad, for the dark brings peace At the close of day. Each weary toiler, with lingering pace, As he homeward turns, with the long day done, Looks out to the west, with the light on his face Of the setting sun. Yet some see not (with their sin-dimmed eyes) The promise of rest in the fading light; But the clouds loom dark in the angry skies At the fall of night. ”

“ That rent her soul! Immortal not by art
Which makes a long past sorrow sting again
Like grief of yesterday: but since it said
In simplest word the truth which all may see,
Where any mother sobs above her dead
And plays anew the silent tragedy. ”

“ One is so often reminded of the poverty of men's invention, their best being so incomplete, their greatest so trivial, that one welcomes what—this Sapper officer surmised—may become a new and fixed mode of expression in verse.
As to the theme itself—I am using his words: what is his is mine; what is mine is his—the interest is universal. The dead, still conscious, fallen in a noble cause, see their graves overblown in a riot of poppy bloom. The poppy is the emblem of sleep. The dead desire to sleep undisturbed, but yet curiously take an interest in passing events. ”

“ More often fire came from three quarters left, and because our ridge died away there was a low spot over which they could come pretty dangerously. The road thirty yards behind us was a nightmare to me. I saw all the tragedies of war enacted there. A wagon, or a bunch of horses, or a stray man, or a couple of men, would get there just in time for a shell. One would see the absolute knock-out, and the obviously lightly wounded crawling off on hands and knees; or worse yet, at night, one would hear the tragedy—"that horse scream"—or the man's moan. ”

“ The tree-tops tossed with a ceaseless song:
⁠"Do ye think with regret on the sunny days
⁠And the path ye left, with its untrod ways?
⁠The sun might sink in a storm cloud's frown
⁠And the path grow rough when the night came down."
In the grey twilight of the autumn eves,
It sighed as it sang through the dying leaves:
⁠"Ye think with regret that the world was bright,
⁠That your path was short and your task was light ”

“ The Shadow of the Cross At the drowsy dusk when the shadows creep From the golden west, where the sunbeams sleep, An angel mused: "Is there good or ill In the mad world's heart, since on Calvary's hill 'Round the cross a mid-day twilight fell That darkened earth and o'ershadowed hell?" ”

“ Equality I saw a King, who spent his life to weave Into a nation all his great heart thought, Unsatisfied until he should achieve The grand ideal that his manhood sought; Yet as he saw the end within his reach, Death took the sceptre from his failing hand, And all men said, "He gave his life to teach The task of honour to a sordid land!" ”

“ When one stands by the holy place wherein dwells a dead friend's soul—the word would slip out at last—it becomes him to take off the shoes from off his feet. But fortunately the dilemma does not arise. The task has already been performed by one who by God has been endowed with the religious sense, and by nature enriched with the gift of expression; one who in his high calling has long been acquainted with the grief of others, and is now himself a man of sorrow, having seen with understanding eyes,
These great days range like tides, And leave our dead on every shore. ”

“ The Night Cometh Cometh the night. The wind falls low, The trees swing slowly to and fro: Around the church the headstones grey Cluster, like children strayed away But found again, and folded so. No chiding look doth she bestow: If she is glad, they cannot know; If ill or well they spend their day, Cometh the night. Singing or sad, intent they go; They do not see the shadows grow; "There yet is time," they lightly say, "Before our work aside we lay"; Their task is but half-done, and lo! Cometh the night. ”

“ The houses everywhere are as dark as possible, and on the roads noises but no lights. One goes on by the long rows of trees that are so numerous in this country, on cobblestones and country roads, watching one's horses' ears wagging, and seeing not much else. Our maps are well studied before we start, and this time we are not far out of familiar territory. We got to our new billet about 10—quite a good farmhouse; and almost at once one feels the relief of the strain of being in the shell zone. ”

“ Through the streets of a city the angel sped; Like an open scroll men's hearts he read. In a monarch's ear his courtiers lied And humble faces hid hearts of pride. Men's hate waxed hot, and their hearts grew cold, As they haggled and fought for the lust of gold. Despairing, he cried, "After all these years Is there naught but hatred and strife and tears?" ”

“ Recompense I saw two sowers in Life's field at morn, To whom came one in angel guise and said, "Is it for labour that a man is born? Lo: I am Ease. Come ye and eat my bread!" Then gladly one forsook his task undone And with the Tempter went his slothful way, The other toiled until the setting sun With stealing shadows blurred the dusty day. Ere harvest time, upon earth's peaceful breast Each laid him down among the unreaping dead. "Labour hath other recompense than rest, Else were the toiler like the fool," I said ”

“ The ammunition had to be brought down the roads at the gallop, and the more firing the more wagons. The men would quickly carry the rounds to the guns, as the wagons had to halt behind our hill. The good old horses would swing around at the gallop, pull up in an instant, and stand puffing and blowing, but with their heads up, as if to say, "Wasn't that well done?" It makes you want to kiss their dear old noses, and assure them of a peaceful pasture once more. To-day we got our dressing station dugout complete, and slept there at night. ”

“ The sappers work by night. The officer turned and went his way to his accursed trenches, leaving the verse with me.
John McCrae witnessed only once the raw earth of Flanders hide its shame in the warm scarlet glory of the poppy. Others have watched this resurrection of the flowers in four successive seasons, a fresh miracle every time it occurs. Also they have observed the rows of crosses lengthen, the torch thrown, caught, and carried to victory. The dead may sleep. We have not broken faith with them.
It is little wonder then that "In Flanders Fields" has become the poem of the army. ”

“ The soldiers have learned it with their hearts, which is quite a different thing from committing it to memory. It circulates, as a song should circulate, by the living word of mouth, not by printed characters. That is the true test of poetry,—its insistence on making itself learnt by heart. ”

“ Wherein we did another's burden seek,
The tired feet we helped upon the road,
The hand we gave the weary and the weak,
The miles we lightened one another's load,
When, faint to falling, onward yet we strode:
This too was Life. ”

“ Creeps, lilac-laden, up the village street
⁠When all is still, as if the very trees
Were listening for the coming of her feet
⁠That come no more; yet, lest I weep, the breeze
Sings some forgotten song of those old years
Until my heart grows far too glad for tears. ”

“ At Aboukir, saw how the dead men lay;
Charged with the fiercest in Busaco's strife,
Brave dreams are his—the flick'ring lamp burns low—
Yet couraged for the battles of the day
He goes to stand full face to face with life. ”

“ I know the look o' the land and sky,
And the bird that builds in the tree near by,
And times I hear the jackals cry,
⁠And me in Brecon Town.
Golden grey on miles of sand
⁠The dawn comes creeping down ”

“ I LEFT, to earth, a little maiden fair,⁠
⁠With locks of gold, and eyes that shamed the light;
I prayed that God might have her in His care
⁠And sight.
Earth's love was false; her voice, a siren's song ”

“ A man neither lives to himself nor in himself. He is indissolubly bound up with his stock, and can only explain himself in terms common to his family; but in doing so he transcends the limits of history, and passes into the realms of philosophy and religion.
The life of a Canadian is bound up with the history of his parish, of his town, of his province, of his country, and even with the history of that country in which his family had its birth. The life of John McCrae takes us back to Scotland. In Canada there has been much writing of history of a certain kind. ”

“ So near, I caught the tender words he said:
To-night the rain-drenched breezes sway the grass
⁠Above his head.
That night full envious of his life was I,
That youth and love should stand at his behest ”

“ This is the ninth day that we have stuck to the ridge, and the batteries have fought with a steadiness which is beyond all praise. If I could say what our casualties in men, guns, and horses were, you would see at a glance it has been a hot corner; but we have given better than we got, for the German casualties from this front have been largely from artillery, except for the French attack of yesterday and the day before, when they advanced appreciably on our left. ”