impersonate the
dead. We common folk know better. We know that in personating the dear
dead, and calling in bell-like tones on the inarticulate living, the
poet shall be enabled to break the lightnings of the Beast, and thereby
he, being himself, alas! dead, yet speaketh; and shall speak, to ones
and twos and a host. As it is written in resonant bronze: VIVOS . VOCO
. MORTUOS . PLANGO . FULGURA . FRANGO: words cast by this officer upon
a church bell which still rings in far away Orwell in memory of his
father--and of mine.

By this time the little room was cold. For some reason the guns had
awakened in the Salient. An Indian trooper who had just come up, and did
not yet know the orders, blew "Lights out",--on a cavalry trumpet.
The sappers work by night. The officer turned and went his way to his
accursed trenches, leaving the verse with me.

John McCrae witnessed only once the raw earth of Flanders hide its
shame in the warm scarlet glory of the poppy. Others have watched this
resurrection of the flowers in four successive seasons, a fresh miracle
every time it occurs. Also they have observed the rows of crosses
lengthen, the torch thrown, caught, and carried to victory. The dead may
sleep. We have not broken faith with them.

It is little wonder then that "In Flanders Fields" has become the poem
of the army. The soldiers have learned it with their hearts, which is
quite a different thing from committing it to memory. It circulates,
as a song should circulate, by the living word of mouth, not by printed
characters. That is the true test of poetry,--its insistence on making
itself learnt by heart. The army has varied the text; but each variation
only serves to reveal more clearly the mind of the maker. The army
says, "AMONG the crosses"; "felt dawn AND sunset glow"; "LIVED and were
loved". The army may be right: it usually is.

Nor has any piece of verse in recent years been more widely known in the
civilian world. It was used on every platform from which men were being
adjured to adventure their lives or their riches in the great trial
through which the present generation has passed. Many "replies" have
been made. The best I have seen was written in the 'New York Evening
Post'. None but those who were prepared to die before Vimy Ridge that
early April day of 1916 will ever feel fully the great truth of Mr.
Lillard's opening lines, as they speak for all Americans:

"Rest ye in peace, ye Flanders dead.
The f