En.Citatepedia^®.ro

In Flanders Field

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.

poem by John McCrae
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

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 among the guns below.

quote by John McCrae
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!

I Wonder.

In Flanders Fields red poppies grow.
But long dead warriors lie below.
Their rotted bodies nourishing
The scarlet poppies flourishing..

As if to draw attention to.
The graves of men who never knew.
That they would not see their homes more
But here they lie for evermore.

In Flanders Fields lost heroes lie.
In unmarked graves beneath the sky.
Far from the which gave them birth
They add their substance to the earth.

Which Belgian farmers cultivate.
Selected randomly by fate.
There can be few survivors left

But those of us who choose to go
To Flanders where the poppies grow.
All make the trip to show respect
Numbers dwindling as you'd expect.

There's very few now left to go.
To see the scarlet poppies glow
The numbers grow less day by day.
When they are called they must obey.

Rejoining those who went before.
The men who fell in the Great War.
I wonder will poppies still grow
When there's no one left to go.

Monday,25 June 2012

poem by Ivor Or Ivor.e Hogg
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

The Songs of the Lathes

The fans and the beltings they roar round me.
The power is shaking the floor round me
Till the lathes pick up their duty and the midnight-shift takes over.
It is good for me to be here!

Guns in Flanders--Flanders guns!
(I had a man that worked 'em once!)
Shells for guns in Flanders, Flanders!
Shells for guns in Flanders, Flanders!
Shells for guns in Flanders! Feeds the guns!

The cranes and the carriers they boom over me,
The bays and the galleries they loom over me,
With their quarter-mile of pillars growing little in the distance--
It is good for me to be here!

The Zeppelins and Gothas they raid over us.
Our lights give warning, and fade over us.
(Seven thousand women keeping quiet in the darkness!)
Oh, it's good for me to be here.

The roofs and the buildings they grow round me,
Eating up the fields I used to know round me;
And the shed that I began in is a sub-inspector's office--
So long have I been here!

I've seen six hundred mornings make our lamps grow dim,
Through the bit that isn't painted round our sky-light rim,
And the sunshine through the window slope according to the seasons,
Twice since I've been here.

The trains on the sidings they call to us
With the hundred thousand blanks that they haul to us;
And we send 'em what we've finished, and they take it where it's wanted,
For that is why we are here!

Man's hate passes as his love will pass.
God made Woman what she always was.
Them that bear the burden they will never grant forgiveness
So long as they are here!

Once I was a woman, but that's by with me.
All I loved and looked for, it must die with me;
But the Lord has left me over for a servant of the Judgment,
And I serve His Judgments here!

Guns in Flanders--Flanders guns!
(I had a son that worked 'em once!)
Shells for guns in Flanders, Flanders!
Shells for guns in Flanders, Flanders!
Shells for guns in Flanders! Feeds the guns!

poem by Rudyard Kipling
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow: In Flanders fields.

quote by John McCrae
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!

A Blooming Shame

Still fields of scarlet poppies blow
on long abandoned battle fields.
The bones of dead men hid below
will feed their roots increasing yields.

The few survivors are now all dead.
Rejoined the comrades that they knew.
So we remember in their stead.
The many who salute the few.

Now Patch is dead he was the last
veteran who survived the war
A living relic from the past
who lived a hundred years and more.

There�s no one left who can recall
the muddy trenches and the gas.
The pain of seeing comrades fall.
He watched the long years slowly pass.

He never sought publicity.
He was a very private man
but became a celebrity
The last surviving veteran.

Each year the scarlet poppies grow
On Flanders Fields abundantly
The countless dead who lie below
Have earned their place in history.

By foolish useless sacrifice
They gave their lives to end all war
I think they paid to high a price.
The world is as it was before.

Men are still killing other men
but now much more efficiently
Each year we fail to learn again
the lessons taught by history.

There are no winners in a war.
There never was nor will there be.
But men will fight for evermore.
It�s human nature seemingly.

poem by Ivor Or Ivor.e Hogg
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Flanders

Flanders, the name of a place, a country of people,
Spells itself with letters, is written in books.

"Where is Flanders?" was asked one time,
Flanders known only to those who lived there
And milked cows and made cheese and spoke the home language.

"Where is Flanders?" was asked.
And the slang adepts shot the reply: Search me.

A few thousand people milking cows, raising radishes,
On a land of salt grass and dunes, sand-swept with a sea-breath on it:
This was Flanders, the unknown, the quiet,
The place where cows hunted lush cuds of green on lowlands,
And the raw-boned plowmen took horses with long shanks
Out in the dawn to the sea-breath.

Flanders sat slow-spoken amid slow-swung windmills,
Slow-circling windmill arms turning north or west,
Turning to talk to the swaggering winds, the childish winds,
So Flanders sat with the heart of a kitchen girl
Washing wooden bowls in the winter sun by a window.

poem by Carl Sandburg
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

In flanders

Through sleet and fogs to the saline bogs
Where the herring fish meanders,
An army sped, and then, 't is said,
Swore terribly in Flanders:
"--------!"
"--------!"
A hideous store of oaths they swore,
Did the army over in Flanders!

At this distant day we're unable to say
What so aroused their danders;
But it's doubtless the case, to their lasting disgrace,
That the army swore in Flanders:
"--------!"
"--------!"
And many more such oaths they swore,
Did that impious horde in Flanders!

Some folks contend that these oaths without end
Began among the commanders,
That, taking this cue, the subordinates, too,
Swore terribly in Flanders:
Twas "------------!"
"--------"

Why, the air was blue with the hullaballoo
Of those wicked men in Flanders!

But some suppose that the trouble arose
With a certain Corporal Sanders,
Who sought to abuse the wooden shoes
That the natives wore in Flanders.
Saying: "--------!"
"--------"

What marvel then, that the other men
Felt encouraged to swear in Flanders!
At any rate, as I grieve to state,
Since these soldiers vented their danders
Conjectures obtain that for language profane
There is no such place as Flanders.
"--------"
"--------"

This is the kind of talk you'll find
If ever you go to Flanders.
How wretched is he, wherever he be,
That unto this habit panders!
And how glad am I that my interests lie
In Chicago, and not in Flanders!
"----------------!"
"----------------!"

Would never go down in this circumspect town
However it might in Flanders.

poem by Eugene Field
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

High Summer

Pinks and syringa in the garden closes
And the sweet privet hedge and golden roses.
The pines hot in the sun, the drone of the bee;
They die in Flanders to keep these for me.

The long sunny days and the still weather,
The cuckoo and the blackbird shouting together,
The lambs calling their mothers out on the lea;
They die in Flanders to keep these for me.

The doors and windows open: South wind blowing
Warm through the clean sweet rooms, on tip-toe going,
Where many sanctities, dear and delightsome be --
They die in Flanders to keep these for me.

Daisies leaping in foam on the green grasses,
The dappled sky and the stream that sings as it passes --
These are bought with a price, a bitter fee --
They die in Flanders to keep these for me.

poem by Katharine Tynan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Homeward

Behind a trench in Flanders the sun was dropping low,
With tramp, and creak and jingle I heard the gun-teams go;
And something seemed to 'mind me, a-dreaming as I lay,
Of my own old Hampshire village at the quiet end of day.

Brown thatch and gardens blooming with lily and with rose,
And the cool shining river so pleasant where he flows,
White fields of oats and barley, and elderflower like foam,
And the sky gold with sunset, and the horses going home!

(
Home, lad, home, all among the corn and clover!
Home, lad, home when the time for work is over!
Oh there's rest for horse and man when the longest day is done
And they go home together at setting of the sun!
)

Old Captain, Prince and Blossom, I see them all so plain,
With tasseled ear-caps nodding along the leafy lane,
There's a bird somewhere calling, and the swallow flying low,
And the lads sitting sideways, and singing as they go.

Well gone is many a lad now, and many a horse gone too,
Off all those lads and horses in those old fields I knew;
There's Dick that died at Cuinchy and Prince beside the guns
On the red road of glory, a mile or two from Mons!

Dead lads and shadowy horses - I see them just the same,
I see them and I know them, and name them each by name,
Going down to shining waters when all the West's a-glow,
And the lads sitting sideways and singing as they go.

(
Home, lad, home . . . with the sunset on their faces!
Home, lad, home . . . to those quiet happy places!
There's rest for horse and man when the hardest fight is done,
And they go home together at setting of the sun!
)

poem by Cicely Fox Smith
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Bullets and Poppies

Bullets were flying
and soldiers were dying
as crimson poppies
swayed in the breeze,
beyond the trenches
beyond the green leas
in the fourteen-eighteen war
'the war to end all wars'
but these words sadly
failed to please.

The poppy's the emblem
and sorrowful hearts in sympathy
wander back to Flanders Fields
where thousands of comrades
were shamefully killed.
Golden the archives,
with names of the heroes...
and the poppy still sways
in the breeze, because
wars will never cease.

poem by Joyce Hemsley
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

The Sowing

Upon the wind sheltered hillside,
the sharp tang of metal and the sting of salt air lay
over a field of blood-red poppies, no Flander's Field.

At years fall, fields of rape roll like waves,
in the harshness of winter-sleet, stray boulders bow;
like the backs of mothers, daughters sowing.
Their nails torn, ragged and bleeding.
They bleed by the moon, and son upon the field.
No white crosses mark their passing.

For hundreds of years, and crops of rape, barley and wheat;
small hands, soft hands, and soft thighs bleed.
They bleed daughters, and sons.
They birth the fields and in the fields by consent or rape;
unadorned by silver stars or purple hearts.

Today, as May's sun wakes the blood blasted pasture,
each precious dropp blooms…..a heroines acknowledgement
the poppies yield.

poem by Deborah Guzzi
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Killers All?

Now bugle boy what do you blow
Your trumpet pressed to your dead lips
I sound recall to let them know
this is the end of their hardships

They came as boys but died like men
From factories farms and mean back streets
They will not see their homes again
The brave young men whom death defeats.

They answered to their country’s call
And donned their Khaki battle dress
And shipped to France where they would fall
by thousands in the wilderness.

Created by the shot and shell
turning the battlefield to mud.
Which drowned young soldiers where they fell
and drenched the earth with their hearts blood.

Now poppies blow in Flanders fields’
The soil enriched by dead men bones
which has increased the harvest yields.
The poppies act as their headstones.

So many died and were not found
their fate unknown, No man could say
Their bodies melded with the ground
but we remember still to day.

The slaughter and the sacrifice
The useless waste of human lives.
They were prepared to pay the price.
Though a small band of them survives.

Each passing year their numbers fall
Old age more sure than shot and shell.
Soon there will be none at all
who endured that living hell.

The war to end all wars they said
You will be home by Christmas tide
Instead of that most would be dead.
Involuntary suicide.

We honour those who bravely died
a generation of young men.
The best of breed on either side.
But still we go to war again.

The world has never been at peace
since the war to end all wars.
I don’t believe that wars will cease
as long as there are warriors.

Who think they can enforce their will
on other men by force of arms.
It seems that killing is a skill
Which can seduce men with its charms.

16-May-08

http: //blog.myspace.com./poeticpiers

poem by Ivor Or Ivor.e Hogg
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

A War to End War.................

Where poppies used to grow
Now a theatre of muddy war.
Hear England’s best did bleed
To seed the earth with death,
Upon the killing fields;
And shell shocked men did quake
With each blaze of cannonades that
Shook the already savaged ground.
Here sad corpses lay unburied;
Never to see homeward shores
But to lie discomfited, lost;
In the cold discolured earth.
A war to end war?
No, so here we are again,
Our soldiers bravely die.
Lost in another foreign field
Where opium poppies grow.

poem by Paul Brookes
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

The Lowlands Of Flanders

THE night that I was married
Our Captain came to me:
Rise up, rise up, new-married man
And come at once with me.

For the Lowlands of Flanders,
It's there that we must fight;
So look your last and buss your last,
For we shall sail to-night.

'Tis all for our Counterie
And for our King we go
To the Lowlands of Flanders
Against the German foe.

The girl that weds a soldier
Must never blench for fear;
I kissed my last and looked my last
Upon my lovely dear.

The Lowlands of Flanders,
Their rivers run so red.
But I must say Good-bye, my dear,
My only dear, I said.

For now I must go sailing
Upon the stormy main;
Good-bye, good-bye, my only Love,
Till I shall come again.

I put her white arms from me,
Her cheek was cold as clay.
The night that I was married
No longer I might stay.

Our bugles they are blowing,
And I must sail the sea,
For the Lowlands of Flanders
Betwixt my love and me.

poem by Katharine Tynan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Battle field musings

Battlefield musings

I am aware that thousands lie beneath the soil below the sky
I listen to their silent cry. Why were we sent to fight and die?
They came from every walk of life and briefly trained to join the strife.
In the Great War to end all wars. Convinced they fought in freedoms cause.
The men of God the padres lied, they said that God was on our side
That he would grant them victory but they were wrong quite obviously.
The tides of war ebbed to and fro. It was impossible to know.
Which side if either was ahead. The quick were fewer than the dead
Young soldiers by the thousand died in the name of national pride.
Eventually it was agreed that the Germans would concede.
But was it worth the sacrifice. There is no answer satisfies
The myriads who fought and died. The truth is that their leaders lied
Now poppies grow in Flanders fields where the dead increase the yield
of crops the local farmers grow. We can’t pretend we do not know
There are no winners in a war, a lesson we choose to ignore.
We only pay lip service to, a fact we know too well is true.

Saturday,16 October 2010
http: // blog.myspace.com/poeticpiers

poem by Ivor Or Ivor.e Hogg
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

The Tommies lot

While general's drink their claret wine
In taverns far behind the lines
The English Tommy spills another wine

On Flanders table made from mothers pride
In front of guns in faltered stride
The sweet wine of youth seeps away
Dragging dreams of tomorrows men
Into broken hearts to be remembered by she.
A vintage lost to you and me

And, when autumns harvest came
The Tommy was the crop,
The Somme and Verdun is where life was stopped
And when winter froze the ground
The Tommy slept with reaper sound
Content to die with enemies damned
Caressed by yesterday's ghosts in this Flanders land

When loved ones sent letters from home
The Tommy bore silent pain alone
For tears are for lovers and kisses for wives
Now replaced by the tears of loss
And boys too young to find love

Their first kiss that of the bullet
For they were not too young to die
Though "mother" was often their last dying cry

Now the guns are silent
And the fields are green
The marble cross the epitaph to nightmares dream
In death the axis and Allies are equal
In life we failed to stop the sequel,

So remember that cross and remember these lads
Remember the wives and remember the dads
Rest in peace our brave Tommy lads.

poem by Steven Cooke
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Elegy On An Australian Schoolboy

I would not curse your England, wise as slow,
Just as unjust in deed.
I can believe that from her heart may flow
The truest human creed.
She sounded one high call of Liberty
That despots heard with dread;
I know not what high purpose to be free
Crowns yet her starry head.

Do I but raise a ghost? Is England dead?
Lies she in lands forlorn?
Shall Kentish orchards never hear the tread
Of eager life at morn?
Is she but memories of old men and sad
Since youth has left her side?
Has that vast glory that you dreamed she had
But perished crucified?

England! Though all her vaunted heroes rise
From Nile to Flanders red
Calling you from the long, red sunset skies
You shall remain still dead.
You shall not touch her woods and flowers again,
You shall not sail her Thames,
You shall not see in her soft April rain
The fairy diadems.

She cannot honour you. You do not feel
Her tears and pity deep.
Though all her multitudes in homage kneel,
That cannot break your sleep,
That cannot give you back the dew of earth
The light upon the sea,
The soft, sweet ripple of your child’s first mirth—
Your immortality.

In every man there is a great, new world—
Perhaps a glorious race.
How can we tell the hero that war hurled
To death bore not Christ’s face?
How can we tell what nobler nations lie
Now on the fields of France,
What unborn masters of creation cry
Through murdered, white romance?

I only know you, brother of my blood,
Have gone; and many a friend,
Trampled and broken in the Flanders mud,
Found Youth’s most bitter end.
God! You are not yet one with the kind dust
Before new war-horns blow
And sleek-limbed statesmen in their halls break trust
To tell of other woe.

I speak as if you heard me, O my dear,
From England’s far-off shore,
As if that land fills me with such fear
Held you not evermore.
I live too much to feel that death must be,
Though men make death to-day;
I will not set the blame on Deity
Of murder tunes they play.

And yet you have not uttered one poor word
While these harsh thoughts I weave.
Silent as God! No murmur have I heard;
’Tis I, not you, who grieve.
How should I move that vast eternity,
Enough loud my cries and wild?
No more am I regarded than the sea
Regards a brawling child.

poem by Zora Bernice May Cross
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Poppies

Poppies they say adieu, goodbye,
men fought, yet did not want to die,
Poppies were tossing, waving free,
as war took lives so poignantly.

Poppies upstanding, boldly grow,
youth enlisted but did not know,
Poppieswould represent such pain,
that they would never forget the slain.

Poppies beautiful, fresh and new,
All one bright colour, flawless hue,
Poppies petals see where they land,
upon a face, an arm or a hand.

Poppies vibrant, stunningly red,
softly surround each silent head,
Poppies fragile, dainty and neat,
guard the space around their feet.

Poppies carpeting the hard ground,
where the marching of boots resound,
Poppies whose wind blown seas of blood,
captured them like a mighty flood.

Poppies tell of their dreams long lost, ,
we hear their names, we count the cost.
Poppies bring tears as we recall,
our loved ones parted from us all.

Poppies they say goodbye, adieu,
men fought for me, they fought for you.
Those tossing poppies, waving free,
mean remembrance to you and me.

Copyright. Ernestine Northover

poem by Ernestine Northover
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Field Of Joy

let's wander slowly through the fields
slowly slowly through the fields
i touch the leaves that touch the sky
just you and i through fields of joy
all trouble slowly fades away
slowly slowly fades away
i hold your hand inside my hand
across the land through fields of joy
the sound of music that we hear
the blend of colors throug the air
all cities, mountains disappear from view
all truth and beauty near to me and you
with you through the fields
with you through the fields
with you through the fields
the fields of joy
let's wander slowly through the fields
slowly slowly through the fields
i know our love will never die
just you and i
through fields of joy
through fields of joy

song performed by by Lenny Kravitz
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!

Generally speaking

The guns fall silent and the dead
lie quietly they’ve played their part.
The night hour’s pass heavy with dread
at first light the big guns will start.

The sound of the artillery
will fill the silent skies again.
Eroding further bravery
of the war weary fighting men.

The brave young men on either side
are doomed to die face down in mud.
Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.
Their dug outs do but little good.

A shell burst may not kill just maim
The lucky ones are those who die,
they are the winners in this game
when thick and fast the bullets fly.

Opposing sides move to and fro
to capture trenches they’ve just left.
For no good reason that they know
obeying orders quite bereft

of any sign of sanity.
The generals are safe behind the lines
Unlike the vast majority
who fight to fulfil their designs.

Lions by donkeys badly led
Young men by the thousand died.
A foreign field their final bed
because good sense was not applied.

In Flanders fields the poppies grow.
The soil enriched by their hearts blood
What have we learnt we did not know?
Nobody won Nobody could.

There are no winners none at all
except perhaps the carrion crows
They dine well when the soldiers fall
as mighty nations come to blows.

Survivors return home broken men
with small support and little praise.
Until they’re needed once again
when countries their new armies raise.

Another war to end all wars.
We do not learn from history
For men can always find a cause.
Why this should be a mystery.

18-Feb-08

poem by Ivor Or Ivor.e Hogg
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!