IN FLANDERS FIELDS.
These famous verses, which originally appeared in Punch, December 8th, 1915, being the work of a Canadian officer, Lieut.-Colonel McCrae, who fell in the War, have been subjected to so many perversions—the latest in a letter to The Times from a Minister of the Crown, where the closing lines are misquoted as follows:
"If ye break faith with those of us who died,
We shall not sleep, though poppies bloom in fields of France"—
that Mr. Punch thinks it would be well to reproduce them in their correct form:—
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.