There shall beIn that rich earth a richer dust concealed A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,A body of England’s, breathing English air,Washed by the rivers, blest by the suns of home.And think, this heart, all evil shed away,A pulse in the eternal mind, no lessGives somewhere back the thoughts by England given Her sights and sounds dreams happy as her day And laughter, learnt of friends and gentleness,In hearts at peace, under an English heaven. If I should die, think only this of me:That there’s some corner of a foreign fieldThat is forever England. With souls unpurged and steadfast breathThey supped the sacrament of death.And for each one, far off, apart,Seven swords have rent a woman's heart. Under the level winter skyI saw a thousand Christs go by.They sang an idle song and freeAs they went up to calvary.Ĭareless of eye and coarse of lip,They marched in holiest fellowship.That heaven might heal the world, they gaveTheir earth-born dreams to deck the grave. Take up our quarrel with the foe:To you from failing hands we throwThe torch be yours to hold it high.If ye break faith with us who dieWe shall not sleep, though poppies growIn Flanders fields. Short days agoWe lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,Loved and were loved, and now we lieIn Flanders fields. In Flanders fields the poppies blowBetween the crosses, row on row,That mark our place and in the skyThe larks, still bravely singing, flyScarce heard amid the guns below. The First World War was “one of the seminal moments of the twentieth century in which literate soldiers, plunged into inhuman conditions, reacted to their surroundings in poems”, writes English lecturer Dr Stuart Lee on Oxford University’s First World War Poetry Digital Archive.Īccording to BBC’s HistoryExtra, “some 2,200 writers published poetry about the Great War between 19, 25 per cent of them women and fewer than 20 per cent men in uniform”.īelow are some of the best, written during the years of the First World War and beyond. Others will take solace and inspiration from the poetry from Britain’s greatest war. Why the Battle of the Somme was so significant.Remembrance Day: why do we fall silent and wear poppies?.
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