Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from flailing 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 sent his poem to The Spectator, a British weekly magazine, which rejected it. Dissatisfied with it, John tossed it away, but a fellow officer retrieved it and sent it to newspapers in England. It was published anonymously in “Punch” on December 8, 1915.
Within a short time, this poem came to symbolize the sacrifice of all those who fought during the First World War. The poem’s imagery has become a part of the collective memory of war.
Today, the poem continues to be part of the Remembrance Day ceremonies in Canada, the annual Festival of Remembrance in the United States and Remembrance ceremonies in other Commonwealth countries.
Each image in John’s poem accurately triggers its expected emotional response. The red poppies are a traditional elegy, which also symbolizes the blood that was shed. The crosses suggest sacrifice; the sky as seen from a trench. The larks singing amid the horror of mankind’s greatest folly, the contrast between the song of the larks and the voice of the guns; the significance of dawn and sunset, suggesting birth and death. Then there is the conception of soldiers as lovers, brothers, fathers and sons; the antithesis between beds and graves. The poem sails across our imaginations creating realistic images of the past.
In Flanders Fields was the second last poem that John wrote. The last, “The Anxious Dead,” is not as well known.
In 1917, John suffered severe asthma attacks and bouts of bronchitis. On January 23 1918, he received word that he had been appointed to the British Armies in France – the first Canadian to achieve that rank. Though he had suffered from asthma throughout his life, his attacks were increased by the effects of poisonous mustard gas. That night he took to his bed with an excruciating headache. The next day, he diagnosed himself as having pneumonia. He was transferred to Number 14 British General Hospital at Winereux, just up the coast from Boulogne.
John died at 1:30 AM on January 28, of pneumonia and meningitis. He was buried at Wimereux Cemetery north of Boulogne, with full military honors. His horse, Bonfire, led the procession with John’s riding boots reversed in the stirrups. He was greatly mourned by all that knew him.
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