In Flanders Field...

[Titanic]

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.

John McCrae - Ypres 1915.

 

[tedebear]

I went on a tour of Ypres many moons ago, and was informed that a reading of that poem would be undertaken at the conclusion of the tour (bus of 16 or so peeps and we saw the trenches, cemetaries all sorts of interesting stuff) and I was a bit blase about it - not being a huge poetry fan.

But bloody hell was it moving, a very cold, wet afternoon and an obviously passionate tour guide, who recited that poem and made me realize what it was all really about. Stark honesty.

 

[Muhammad - I’m hard - Bruce Lee]

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.

John McCrae - Ypres 1915.

lest we forget

 

[Mark Ormerod's Gloves]

 

[Bry Nylon]

At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them.

 

[Cadiz Seagull]

When you go home, tell them of us, and say
For their tomorrows, we gave our today

 

[Garry Nelson's Left Foot]

I was never a fan of poetry at school, but the only one's that could ever stir any interest in me were the old WW1 poems. They always seemed so vivid and real.

Particularly this one:

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! -- - An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime. -- -
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin,
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs
Bitten as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, -- -
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

 

[Spicy]

The Soldier

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.

 

[Bry Nylon]

 

[ben andrews' girlfriend]

I went to Ypres a few years ago, as part of a school trip. Seeing the craters from bombs was still very moving. As tedebear said, my whole schoolgroup were very blaze about it, but as soon as we went to the museum, we fell silent. It was a very eerie place, and suddenly made it very real.

 

[Gully]

I have never visited Ypres, no excuses really as for a time I lived in Belgium and also in the Netherlands, really should have made the effort. I did go to Bastogne, where the battle of the bulge was fought, I nearly ended up punching the lights out of a Belgian bloke who was pushing an elderly American woman around...but that is another story.

The place that I have visited that made a lasting impression on me was Goose Green in the Falkland Islands, where Col "H" Jones lost his life and earned a posthumous VC. I cannot imagine many worse places to have to fight an enemy, the country is a mixture of rocky crags and boggy terrain, maybe nothing in comparison to the mud and trenches of Flanders but horrendous in any case. Next year is the 25th anniversary of the Falklands War, I hope the conflict is remembered in an appropriate manner, we may be fighting wars in places hot and mountainous but please pause for thought of those who perished fighting to liberate those remote islands.

 

[pasty]

I went to Ypres a few years ago, as part of a school trip. Seeing the craters from bombs was still very moving. As tedebear said, my whole schoolgroup were very blaze about it, but as soon as we went to the museum, we fell silent. It was a very eerie place, and suddenly made it very real.

Same here. We went as part of my O-Level 20th century History course. Very very moving.

Edit - Still manged to fail it though

 

[Questions]

The Soldier

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.

Written by a poet who I hazard a guess never set foot on foriegn fighting lands.

Its like the polititions on the t.v. who are the first to wear their poppies sometime in mid october but they are invariably the people who have sent young men to their deaths.

Every year I see the same polititions placing the wreaths and I just know that they will never learn about war until there children are sent to die in a foriegn land.

Today is a day for honouring poor souls who have fallen but I see a military style propaganda fest organised by guess who.

 

[Dandyman]

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.

No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.


Wilfred Owen MC (KIA 04 November 1918)

 

[ben andrews' girlfriend]

Written by a poet who I hazard a guess never set foot on foriegn fighting lands.

You're right, his brother was killed in service in 1915.

He wrote it in response to jingoistic poetry written in the papers.

 

[Questions]

You're right, his brother was killed in service in 1915.

He wrote it in response to jingoistic poetry written in the papers.

I will always remember one of Mrs Thatchers words when the Belgrano was sunk. ''Rejoice'' she said.


I could never rejoice at the thought of 1000 men slipping below the waves.What thats got to do with anything I`m not sure but too much is written gloriying war and I think that sends the wrong message to our younger generation.


My father was in Burma during the war and he always said there was nothing glorious about any of it. Thats a word writers and poets use...................... very rarely soldiers.

 

[BensGrandad]

I have never visited Ypres but during my time in the army, early60s, we were on an exercise which took us near to Belsen, the prison camp so a group of us visited it. As many have said about Ypres, on entering the place I felt a very cold shiver and the reality of what had happend there clicked into place a very erie and humbling experience.

 

[West Hoathly Seagull]

to all those men and women who have fought and suffered for this country. My message to the likes of Questions is that this is about commemorating the suffering these people went through for our freedom, not about glorifying war, although I agree on the hypocrisy of some of the politicians. My Grandfather (Dad's father), who lost a lung, burnt out in an ambush in Bari Harbour in 1944, said that we went to war with the Germans so that we could get on and have proper relations with them afterwards, as Man of Harvey's would no doubt concur, and indeed one of my best mates at university was German. That is one of the reasons the utter crap the Sun comes out with whenever we play Germany really gets on my nerves.

 

[Questions]

to all those men and women who have fought and suffered for this country. My message to the likes of Questions is that this is about commemorating the suffering these people went through for our freedom, not about glorifying war, although I agree on the hypocrisy of some of the politicians. My Grandfather (Dad's father), who lost a lung, burnt out in an ambush in Bari Harbour in 1944, said that we went to war with the Germans so that we could get on and have proper relations with them afterwards, as Man of Harvey's would no doubt concur, and indeed one of my best mates at university was German. That is one of the reasons the utter crap the Sun comes out with whenever we play Germany really gets on my nerves.

It is only the military style commemorating that annoys me.
Certainly not the sentiments.

 

[Seagull's Return]

Written by a poet who I hazard a guess never set foot on foriegn fighting lands.

Actually, although he never saw any action, Rupert Brooke died of septicaemia on a hospital ship off Skyros in 1915, a member of (I think) the Royal Naval Division sent to fight in the Balkans. Which in itself is something of a comment on futility, perhaps.