His poem, “In Flanders’ Fields,” was written on the Flanders front in the Spring of 1915. Its inspiration is thus explained by Sergeant Charles E. Bisset, of the 19th Battalion, 1st Brigade, Canadian Infantry:
“On the Flanders front in the early Spring of 1915, when the war had settled down to trench fighting, two of the most noticeable features of the field were, first, the luxuriant growth of red poppies appearing among the graves of the fallen soldiers, and second, that only one species of bird—the larks—remained on the field during the fighting. As soon as the cannonading ceased, they would rise in the air, singing.”
IN FLANDERS’ FIELDS
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.
Rupert Brooke, a brilliant, impassioned young Englishman, was one of the first to take arms when Great Britain went to war. He died in the Dardanelles expedition, April 23, 1915. A few days before, he had sent from the Ægean Sea to the English-speaking peoples the poem by which he is best known:
THE SOLDIER[2]
IF I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed,
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England’s breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.
And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.
Lieutenant Brooke was a rare poet, having a serene faith, a knowledge of life as continuous. His bent of thought, the manner of his feeling, shine most clearly in this sonnet: