were being adjured to adventure their lives or their riches
in the great trial through which the present generation has passed.
Many "replies" have been made. The best I have seen was written
in the `New York Evening Post'. None but those who were prepared to die
before Vimy Ridge that early April day of 1916 will ever feel fully
the great truth of Mr. Lillard's opening lines, as they speak
for all Americans:

"Rest ye in peace, ye Flanders dead.
The fight that ye so bravely led
We've taken up."

They did -- and bravely. They heard the cry -- "If ye break faith,
we shall not sleep."




II

With the Guns



If there was nothing remarkable about the publication of "In Flanders Fields",
there was something momentous in the moment of writing it. And yet
it was a sure instinct which prompted the writer to send it to `Punch'.
A rational man wishes to know the news of the world in which he lives;
and if he is interested in life, he is eager to know how men feel
and comport themselves amongst the events which are passing.