spiker's blog: "War"

Let There Be Light

Text: Frances W. Davis

Music: Robert J.B. Fleming, 1967

Tune: CONCORD, Meter: 47.76

1.            Let there be light,

                let there be understanding,

                let all the nations gather,

                let them be face to face.

2.            Open our lips,

                open our minds to ponder,

                open the door of concord

                opening into grace.

3.            Perish the sword,

                perish the angry judgment,

                perish the bombs and hunger,

                perish the fight for gain.

4.            Hallow our love,

                hallow the deaths of martyrs,

                hallow their holy freedom,

                hallowed be your name.

5.            Your kingdom come,

                your Spirit turn to language,

                your people speak together,

                your Spirit never fade.

6.            Let there be light,

                open our hearts to wonder,

                perish the way of terror,

                hallow the world God made.

The Poppy

The red field or corn poppy is an annual plant that, preceding the First World War, grew in fairly modest numbers on the edges of grain fields all across Europe.  It was considered by many to be an insignificant weed of little importance.  Each bloom produces many tiny black seeds which are widely dispersed by the wind.  The seeds are remarkably resilient and can survive for many years.

The custom of wearing a poppy to honour the dead stems from a curious regular occurrence on the fields of battle in Flanders and France during the First World War.

That war produced destruction at such a level as the world had never seen.  Modern automatic weapons and particularly artillery shells leveled towns and villages and tore up fields and wooded areas into twisted, grotesque scenes of murdered nature.  Often the wet weather conspired to form vast fields of mud pummeled into a liquid ooze that many soldiers simply fell into and drowned in.  It is difficult to imagine how anything could have survived the utter butchery.

However, starting in the Spring of 1915 and throughout the war years, warm weather and sunshine brought a remarkable transformation on these fields of battle.  Millions of red poppies emerged from the carnage as seeds that had lain dormant for many years germinated in the disturbed soil.  Battle after bloody battle produced clumps and carpets of these vibrant red flowers - nature’s testament to the blood spilled on those fields. 

In May of 1915, Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, a surgeon serving with the Canadian Medical Corps wrote the famous poem ‘In Flanders Fields’ following the death of a close friend in the Battle of Ypres.  The poem was published in Punch magazine in December of that year and quickly became one of the most popular poems of the war.  It’s in another one of my ‘war’ blogs.  The poem was also extensively printed in the United States.

McCrae died from pneumonia on 28 January 1918 whilst still commanding a Canadian Medical Corps hospital at Boulogne.  He was buried the following day at Wimereux Cemetery with full military honours.  Soon after his death Moina Michael, an American lady working at the YMCA Overseas War Secretaries headquarters was moved by the poem to “keep the faith” with the dead and vowed to always wear a red poppy as a sign of remembrance.  In the following years, she campaigned to have the poppy taken up as a national emblem but it was never really taken up by any group until the American Legion adopted the emblem in 1920, but seemingly without the impetus to make it widely popular today.  The Royal British Legion and the Royal Canadian Legion adopted it the following year.

In addition to wearing the poppy as a remembrance to the dead of the two World Wars, today Canadians and members of the British Commonwealth also wear it as a symbol to remember the dead in all conflicts including those that continue today.

I also wear mine in memory of my father who passed away on the day before Remembrance Day, 28 years ago.  At the time of his death I was a young officer in the Canadian Forces serving far from home and scheduled to be on a Remembrance Day Parade  and then on a flight home to visit my ailing father.  He died the day before and so, in my mind, I dedicated the parade to his honour and then caught the flight home to bury my Dad.  Since then Remembrance Day has a double significance to me.

SHE kissed me when she said good-bye
A child's kiss, neither bold nor shy.

We had met but a few short summer hours;
Talked of the sun, the wind, the flowers,

Sports and people; had rambled through
A casual catchy song or two,

And walked with arms linked to the car
By the light of a single misty star.

(It was war-time, you see, and the streets were dark
Lest the ravishing Hun should find a mark.)

And so we turned to say good-bye;
But somehow or other, I don't know why,

-Perhaps t'was the feel of the khaki coat
(She'd a brother in Flanders then) that smote

Her heart to a sudden tenderness
Which issued in that swift caress

Somehow, to her, at any rate
A mere hand-clasp seemed inadequate;

And so she lifted her dewy face
And kissed me but without a trace

Of passion, and we said good-bye. . .
A child's kiss, . . . neither bold nor shy.

My friend, I like you it seemed to say-
Here's to our meeting again some day!
Some happier day. . . .
Good-bye.

Bernard Freeman Trotter, Killed in France, 1917

When you see millions of the mouthless dead
Across your dreams in pale battalions go,
Say not soft things as other men have said,
That you'll remember. For you need not so.
Give them not praise. For, deaf, how should they know
It is not curses heaped on each gashed head?
Nor tears. Their blind eyes see not your tears flow.
Nor honour. It is easy to be dead.
Say only this, "They are dead." Then add thereto,
"yet many a better one has died before."
Then, scanning all the overcrowded mass, should you
Perceive one face that you loved heretofore,
It is a spook. None wears the face you knew.
Great death has made all this for evermore.

Charles Hamilton Sorely, killed in France 1915

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.

John McCrae, Died in France 1918

What passing-bells for those who die like cattle?
     Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
     Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells,
     Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,-
The shrill demented choirs of wailing shells;
     And bugles calling them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?
     Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
     The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
     And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

Wilfred Owen, killed in France - 1918