In Flanders fields the poppies grow

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 lift it high.

If ye break faith with those who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies blow

In Flanders fields.

Oh you who sleep in Flanders fields-

Sleep sweet - to rise anew!

We caught the torch you threw,

And holding high we kept the faith with

Those who died.

We cherish too the poppy red

That grows on fields where valor led;

It seems to signal to the skies

That blood of heroes never dies

But lends a lustre to the red

Of the flower that blooms above the dead

In Flanders fields.

And now the torch and poppy red

We wear in honor of our dead

Fear naught that ye have died for naught

We've learned the lesson that ye taught

In Flanders fields.

Lt. Col. John McCrae was a brigade surgeon with the Canadian army during W.W.I. In April 1915, John McCrae was in the trenches near Ypres, Belgium, in the area traditionally called Flanders. Some of the heaviest fighting of the First World War took place there during what was known as the Second Battle of Ypres. The battle was considered a turning point for the Allies in the war.

I might add that many of those who were in this war looked upon it with great distaste because of the horrors they went through when the Germans used poison gas on them. I knew several of them when I was in the Veterans Hospital that had survived gas attacks, only to spend the rest of their lives in that hospital.

• Printed in a 1944 newspaper in Louisiana, the paper clipping, found in my late Aunt Rose's effects, contained a note at the bottom, "Just your little Sgt. Rogers 1944". Given to her by her husband Murphy Rogers, my uncle, who was a sergeant in the U. S, Army during World War II. There is no date for the clipping. Nor is there a newspaper name. On the back of the clipping is an advertisement for a movie "In Old Oklahoma" that was made in 1943.
• What is odd about this version of the poem is that there are six stanzas instead of the three in the original by L. C. John McCrae.

You may want to look at a site where there is additional information and links to other sites about the poem and Col. McCrae. The URL is:

http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/11.html