The Song and the Singer 123 



This humble Irish poet, this inspired Nature 

 lover, this sweetest singer among sweet singers, 

 shortly before making the supreme sacrifice for 

 his country, put this echo of himself and the song 

 of a bird into the heart of humanity. 



Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae, "when in 

 the thick of it," saw Flanders' fields with the eyes 

 of a seer and sweeps the heart-strings of humanity 

 with a "Swan-song," the like of which was never 

 written, calling upon the world's heroes for help, 

 not for himself, but for his cause, that he might 

 sleep where Poppies blow in Flanders' fields. In 

 the little poem of fifteen lines, two and a half 

 are devoted to a great song that is being sung 

 to terrific accompaniments: 



"And in the sky 



The larks, still bravely singing, fly 

 Scarce heard amid the guns below." 



What he hears is no madrigal, a mere expression 

 of sylvan bowers and love and gaily flitting hours, 

 it of necessity must have been a heroic battle- 

 song, like the great ones "whose footsteps echo 

 through the corridors of Time." 



In the sky of the soldier's mind, in his better 

 moments, there often came the shadow of pass- 

 ing wings and his soul at such a time was often 

 enthralled by some dominant bird song the phan- 

 tom of a silent song for which he listened though 



