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Poppies

Some scarlet poppies lay upon our right.
He watched them through his periscope all day.
He watched then all the day; but in the night
They seemed to pass away.

They came again much redder with the morn’
And still he gazed, and strangely longed to roam
Among their savage splendour in the corn,
And ponder on his home.

But when the charge was done, they found him
there
Deep in the redness, where he’d made his stand,
With withered poppies in his twisted hair,
And poppies in his hand.

poem by Leon Gellert
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A Song Of Poppies

I love red poppies! Imperial red poppies!
Sun-worshippers are they;
Gladly as trees live through a hundred summers
They live one little day.

I love red poppies! Impassioned scarlet poppies!
Ever their strange perfume
Seems like an essence brewed by fairy people
From an immortal bloom.

I love red poppies! Red, silken, swaying poppies!
Deep in their hearts they keep
A magic cure for woe--a draught of Lethe--
A lotus-gift of sleep.

I love red poppies! Soft silver-stemmed, red poppies,
That from the rain and sun
Gather a balm to heal some earth-born sorrow,
When their glad day is done.

poem by Virna Sheard
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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
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Poppies

Seeing poppies growing in the wild,
Takes me back to when I was a child.
We’d often go for walks on a Sunday,
And often spot poppies along the way.

My dad’s hand I would tightly hold,
As I spied the poppies bright and bold.
Because I was young and very small,
The poppies seemed to be so very tall.

There was a field full of them, which I adored.
By their appearance, I never ever grew bored.
The large field where the poppies once grew,
Soon made way for a factory, shiny and new.

True to say, it was only empty waste ground,
But it was our little haven, which we found.
I think they should have left the field alone,
So as, through it, other people could still roam.

I know everyone nowadays talks about progress,
But there are times, when it’s not always for the best.
When they cleared that large patch of waste land,
That stunning view became something very bland.

To me, they are a flower which brings much cheer,
As they remind me of times, which I hold so dear.
Now, when I spot poppies growing here and there,
They remind me of the days, when I had little care.

That riot of colour. That sea of red:
That vision is still there in my head.
I can still picture it in my mind’s eye,
And recall those days of times gone by.

poem by Angela Wybrow
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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
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In the Trenches

I snatched two poppies
From the parapet’s ledge,
Two bright red poppies
That winked on the ledge.
Behind my ear
I stuck one through,
One blood red poppy
I gave to you.

The sandbags narrowed
And screwed out our jest,
And tore the poppy
You had on your breast ...
Down - a shell - O! Christ,
I am choked ... safe ... dust blind, I
See trench floor poppies
Strewn. Smashed you lie.

poem by Isaac Rosenberg
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Different

We were born from poppies. Our skins breathed like the stalks
of our birth givers. Our hairs grew and intertwined.

We were born from poppies. Our skins breathed always
differently, our eye blinked always differently and
we differently counted steps
childlike and pebbles
in little shoes, differently
burned our vocal fires and the letters
we folded differently in different colours
with different post stamps, floral oral tongues
we spoke, the children watched us, we counted,
the river knew, we counted memories and images.
How many images and memories?

We were born by our river in the fragrance of earth and grass
sweated out of the warm womb of cloying red poppies.

poem by Afrodita Nikolova
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The Queen in Black

Remembrance Day, London,1973

How many thousands watched her lay
the wreath of poppies while they prayed…

Or held their breath and stood still in silence
two minutes for the sacrifice, in remembrance.

As each petal falls from above so a page in the book
of memories ~ thoughts of someone they loved and lost.

They say each petal represents the life of one who gave.
Poppies seen growing amongst a country-side of graves…

Frances Macaulay Forde © 1973

poem by Frances Macaulay Forde
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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
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I Dreamt, I Dreamt Of Poppies

I dreamt, I dreamt of poppies
Growing wild in yonder field
They were blooming red and wonderful
Like a dancer, laced and frilled

Fluttering in the sunshine
Like waves of autumn grain
Or a rolling sea…majestic
As a queen in summer reign

I dreamt, I dreamt of poppies
What a glorious display
In a blaze that flamed the skyline
Of a desert far away

I couldn't see the reason
Yet, they flourished in the sand
When all around was barren
In this brutal foreign land

I dreamt, I dreamt of poppies
Like a ribbon drawn in blood
A slash on the horizon
In a soulless evil flood

The sky was dark and eerie
And smoke had filled the air
The atmosphere, chaotic
With shouting everywhere

I dreamt, I dreamt of poppies
In a garden by a stream
The blooms were bold, were beautiful
More vibrant than a dream

Aside a marble stone
Where hand to heart I wept
For the soul that lay in slumber
Beneath the sod he slept

poem by Leria Hawkins
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Gipsy

The poppies that in Spring I sow,
In rings of radiance gleam and glow,
Like lords and ladies gay.
A joy are they to dream beside,
As in the air of eventide
They flutter, dip and sway.

For some are scarlet, some are gold,
While some in fairy flame unfold,
And some are rose and white.
There's pride of breeding in their glance,
And pride of beauty as they dance
Cotillions of delight.

Yet as I lift my eyes I see
Their swarthy kindred wild and free.
Who flaunt it in the field.
"Begone, you Romanies!" I say,
"Lest you defile this bright array
Whose loveliness I shield."

My poppies are a sheen of light;
They take with ecstasy the sight,
And hold the heart elate . . . .
Yet why do I so often turn
To where their outcast brothers burn
With passion at my gate?

My poppies are my joy and pride;
Yet wistfully I gaze outside
To where their sisters yearn;
Their blowzy crimson cups afire,
Their lips aflutter with desire
To give without return.

My poppies dance a minuet;
Like courtiers in silk they set
My garden all aglow . . . .
Yet O the vagrants at my gate!
The gipsy trulls who peer and wait! . . .
Calling the heart they know.

poem by Robert William Service
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Grey Nights

A while we wandered (thus it is I dream!)
Through a long, sandy track of No Man's Land,
Where only poppies grew among the sand,
The which we, plucking, cast with scant esteem,
And ever sadlier, into the sad stream,
Which followed us, as we went, hand in hand,
Under the estranged stars, a road unplanned,
Seeing all things in the shadow of a dream.

And ever sadlier, as the stars expired,
We found the poppies rarer, till thine eyes
Grown all my light, to light me were too tired,
And at their darkening, that no surmise
Might haunt me of the lost days we desired,
After them all I flung those memories!

poem by Ernest Christopher Dowson
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Business Of War

The Business of War.
In this clearing in the woods so full of butter coloured flowers
I know there is a mass grave underneath, a forgotten war,
bones of the nameless that died for a cause that was not theirs,
but they were loyal and when told to fight and they often died,
many never knowing why. At the edge, of the yellow field,
there are pale poppies the dead have no more blood to offer.
I think of Afghanistan, poppies there are more deadly, I wonder
if western soldiers who lost their life in a cause that is unclear,
will get their own graveyard and have their crosses there,
in a Moslem country, tended to with fresh flowers, but go easy
on the poppies. The skeletons under my feet, died because of
salt that, once upon a time- before oil- was big business, but I’m
sure the soldiers were told lies about nationality and freedom.

poem by Oskar Hansen
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Poppies

The gay day is ablaze… And in the languid grass
The poppies’ patches burn like impotent desire…
Like lips that can allure or deathly poison us,
Or wings of butterfly, wide spread and red like fire.

The gay day is ablaze… But old and empty stands
This garden, long ago lost of the feasts and pleasure,
And poppies,weathered, like old women’s heads,
Are warmly overspread by heaven chalice, azure.

poem by Innokenty Fedorovich Annensky
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Ruth

Ruth

She stood breast-high amid the corn,
Clasp’d by the golden light of morn,
Like the sweetheart of the sun,
Who many a glowing kiss had won.

On her cheek an autumn flush,
Deeply ripen’d;—such a blush
In the midst of brown was born,
Like red poppies grown with corn.

Round her eyes her tresses fell,
Which were blackest none could tell,
But long lashes veil’d a light,
That had else been all too bright.

And her hat, with shady brim,
Made her tressy forehead dim;
Thus she stood amid the stooks,
Praising God with sweetest looks:—

Sure, I said, Heav’n did not mean,
Where I reap thou shouldst but glean,
Lay thy sheaf adown and come,
Share my harvest and my home.

poem by Thomas Hood
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May

I cannot tell you how it was,
But this I know: it came to pass
Upon a bright and sunny day
When May was young; ah, pleasant May!
As yet the poppies were not born
Between the blades of tender corn;
The last egg had not hatched as yet,
Nor any bird foregone its mate.

I cannot tell you what it was,
But this I know: it did but pass.
It passed away with sunny May,
Like all sweet things it passed away,
And left me old, and cold, and gray.

poem by Christina Georgina Rossetti
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The Death Of The First Born

COVER him over with daisies white,
And eke with the poppies red,
Sit with me here by his couch to-night,
For the First-Born, Love, is dead.
Poor little fellow, he seemed so fair
As he lay in my jealous arms;
Silent and cold he is lying there
Stripped of his darling charms.
Lusty and strong he had grown forsooth,
Sweet with an infinite grace,
Proud in the force of his conquering youth,
Laughter alight in his face.
Oh, but the blast, it was cruel and keen,
And ah, but the chill it was rare;
The look of the winter-kissed flow'r you've seen
When meadows and fields were bare.
Can you not wake from this white, cold sleep
And speak to me once again?
True that your slumber is deep, so deep,
But deeper by far is my pain.
Cover him over with daisies white,
And eke with the poppies red,
Sit with me here by his couch to-night,
For the First-Born, Love, is dead.

poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar
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In The Poppy Field

Mad Patsy said, he said to me,
That every morning he could see
An angel walking on the sky;
Across the sunny skies of morn
He threw great handfuls far and nigh
Of poppy seed among the corn;
And then, he said, the angels run
To see the poppies in the sun.

A poppy is a devil weed,
I said to him - he disagreed;
He said the devil had no hand
In spreading flowers tall and fair
Through corn and rye and meadow land,
by garth and barrow everywhere:
The devil has not any flower,
But only money in his power.

And then he stretched out in the sun
And rolled upon his back for fun:
He kicked his legs and roared for joy
Because the sun was shining down:
He said he was a little boy
And would not work for any clown:
He ran and laughed behind a bee,
And danced for very ecstasy.

poem by James Stephens
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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
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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
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The Prince's Progress (excerpt)

"Too late for love, too late for joy,
Too late, too late!
You loitered on the road too long,
You trifled at the gate:
The enchanted dove upon her branch
Died without a mate.
The enchanted princess in her tower
Slept, died, behind the grate;
Her heart was starving all this while
You made it wait.

"Ten years ago, five years ago,
One year ago,
Even then you had arrived in time,
Though somewhat slow;
Then you had known her living face
Which now you cannot know:
The frozen fountain would have leaped,
The buds gone on to blow,
The warm south wind would have awaked
To melt the snow.

"Is she fair now as she lies?
Once she was fair;
Meet queen for any kingly king,
With gold-dust on her hair.
Now these are poppies in her locks,
White poppies she must wear;
Must wear a veil to shroud her face
And the want graven there:
Or is the hunger fed at length,
Cast off the care?

"We never saw her with a smile
Or with a frown;
Her bed seemed never soft to her,
Though tossed of down;
She little heeded what she wore,
Kirtle, or wreath, or gown;
We think her white brows often ached
Beneath her crown,
Till silvery hairs showed in her locks
That used to be so brown.

"We never heard her speak in haste;
Her tones were sweet,
And modulated just so much
As it was meet:
Her heart sat silent through the noise
And concourse of the street.
There was no hurry in her hands,
No hurry in her feet;
There was no bliss drew nigh to her,
That she might run to greet.

"You should have wept her yesterday,
Wasting upon her bed:
But wherefore should you weep to-day
That she is dead?
Lo we who love weep not to-day,
But crown her royal head.
Let be these poppies that we strew,
Your roses are too red:
Let be these poppies, not for you
Cut down and spread."

poem by Christina Georgina Rossetti
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