In Flanders Fields Part 11 - "A Corner of A Foreign Field" Great War Poetry

By Joe Corrigan

I would hazard a guess that most Canadians are familiar with Lt. Colonel John McCrae's immortal poem "In Flanders Fields". That's the reason I chose it as the main title for this series of blogs on the history of the First World War. As noted in a previous segment, McCrae was inspired to write his poem during the aftermath of the 2nd Battle of Ypres in April 1915 following the death of a fellow officer and friend. It became famous following its publication by the British press shortly thereafter and is quoted to this day at Remembrance Day ceremonies across Canada and around the world.

John McCrae

In November I was in Toronto on my way to an Ontario Museums Association conference in Mississauga when I stopped to have dinner with my son. After dinner we dropped in at the Book City store on the Danforth, a favourite spot of both my son and I. On the shelves I came across a Daily Mail commemorative publication entitled "A Corner of a Foreign Field - The Illustrated Poetry of the First World War". The book contains close to 200 Great War era poems from professional and amateur poets alike. It represents a view from the trenches as well as from loved ones on the home front. In addition to McCrae's "in Flanders Fields" which is the first poem listed, the book includes works by  W.B. Yeats, Siegfied Sassoon, Wilfred Owen, Robert Frost, Laurence Binyon and a host of others.

Although these works are not generally as well known as "In Flanders Fields", I am familiar with some of these other works, in part due to their mention at remembrance ceremonies or in cinema. Here are just a couple of examples.

Portrait of  W. B. Yeats

An Irish Airman Foresees His Death by W.B. Yeats

I know that I shall meet my fate

Somewhere among the clouds above;

Those that I fight I do not hate,

Those that I guard I do not love;

My country is Kiltartan Cross,

My countrymen Kiltartan's poor.

No likely end could bring them loss

Or leave them happier than before.

Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,

Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,

A lonely impulse of delight

Drove to this tumult in the clouds;

I balanced all, brought all to mind,

The years to come seemed waste of breath,

A waste of breath the years behind

In balance with this life, this death.

I first encounter a reference to this poem when watching the movie "Memphis Bell" back in the early 1990's. It is the story of a World War II US Army Air Force B17 bomber crew embarking on the final mission in their tour of duty. While waiting for the mission to begin, one of the airmen recalls the poem in contemplation of whether or not he will survive the upcoming air battle.

Sopwith Triplane

This next poem is a reflection of the sudden terror troops in the trenches were often faced with. My grandfather was gassed during the later stages of the Great War and the experience impacted his physical and mental health for the rest of his life. The following poem brings graphically to life the horrors of chemical warfare that my grandfather and countless others on both sides endured on the Western Front.

Portrait of Wilfred Owen

Dulce et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen

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 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 floundering 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. 

Ors Communal Cemetery- Wilfred Owen

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace

Behind the wagon that we flung him in,

And watch his 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,

Obscene as cancer, bitter 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.

The final line of the poem is taken from the Roman poet Homer and translates as "It is sweet and honourable to die for one's country". Owen's mother had the poem published posthumously as her son did not survive the war. Tragically, Lieutenant Wilfred Owen was killed in action on November 4th, 1918, almost exactly one week before the end of the war. He was leading his troops in an attack on the Sambre-Oise Canal when he fell, an action for which he received the Military Cross. His mother learned of his death on the 11th of November, the day the guns fell silent across Europe.   

Gassed British 55th Division Troops

One stanza that is always quoted on November 11th (below in italics) comes from the poem "For The Fallen" although I never knew the poem's name until I read this book. One of the things that surprised me about this poem was the fact that it wasn't written after years on the front line. It was published in September of 1914 following the "Old Contempables" fighting retreat from the Belgian city of Mons. The "Old Contempables" was the name the British Expeditionary Force took for itself following the Kaiser's comment upon Britain's entry into the war in August 1914 that the professional British Army was a "contempable little army". 

Portrait of Laurence Binyon

For the Fallen by Laurence Binyon

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,

England mourns for her dead across the sea.

Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,

Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill: Death august and royal

Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres.

There is music in the midst of desolation

And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,

Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.

They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,

They fell with their faces to the foe.

Laurence Binyon by William Strang

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn,

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;

They sit no more at familiar tables of home;

They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;

They sleep beyond England's foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,

Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,

To the innermost heart of their own land they are known

As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,

Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain,

As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,

To the end, to the end, they remain.

Coming up in the series:

One hundred years ago, in November 1916, the Canadian Expeditionary Force disengaged from the fighting at the Somme after sustaining 24,000 casualties in just over two months of combat. They moved north to occupy a 6 kilometre long section of the line facing a German stronghold known as Vimy Ridge! In the months to come, we will examine the logistics, tactics and the events of the battle that marked Canada's coming of age on the world scene.

Joe Corrigan has been Museum Manager at Lang Pioneer Village since February of 2003. He has been a lifelong student of history. His specific areas of interest are Canadian and world political, military and sports history with a particular focus on biographical works. Joe has been interpreting Sir John A. Macdonald at the Museum's Historic Dominion Day event since 2007.