LiederNet logo

CONTENTS

×
  • Home | Introduction
  • Composers (20,109)
  • Text Authors (19,482)
  • Go to a Random Text
  • What’s New
  • A Small Tour
  • FAQ & Links
  • Donors
  • DONATE

UTILITIES

  • Search Everything
  • Search by Surname
  • Search by Title or First Line
  • Search by Year
  • Search by Collection

CREDITS

  • Emily Ezust
  • Contributors (1,114)
  • Contact Information
  • Bibliography

  • Copyright Statement
  • Privacy Policy

Follow us on Facebook

Three Songs of the War

Song Cycle by Charles Edward Ives (1874 - 1954)

1. In Flanders Fields
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
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 amidst 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 falling hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though the poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Text Authorship:

  • by John McCrae (1872 - 1918), "In Flanders Fields"

See other settings of this text.

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

  • FRE French (Français) (Guy Laffaille) , "Dans les champs des Flandres", copyright © 2015, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • GER German (Deutsch) [singable] (Bertram Kottmann) , "Auf Flanderns Feld", copyright © 2017, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

First published anonymously in Punch, December 8, 1915

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

2. He is there!
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
Fifteen years ago today
A little Yankee, little yankee boy
Marched beside his granddaddy
In the decoration day parade.
The village band would play
those old war tunes,
and the G. A. R. would shout,
"Hip Hip Hooray!" in the same old way,
As it sounded on the old camp ground.

That boy has sailed o'er the ocean,
He is there, he is there, he is there.
He's fighting for the right,
but when it comes to might,
He is there, he is there, he is there;
As the Allies beat up all the warlords!
He'll be there, he'll be there,
and then the world will shout
the Battle-cry of Freedom
Tenting on a new camp ground.
For it's rally round the Flag boys
Rally once again, 
Shouting the battle cry of Freedom.

Fifteen years ago today
A little Yankee, with a German name
Heard the tale of "forty-eight"
Why his Granddaddy joined Uncle Sam,
His fathers fought that medieval stuff
and he will fight it now;
"Hip Hip Hooray! this is the day,"
When he'll finish up that aged job.

That boy has sailed o'er the ocean...

There's a time in ev'ry life,
When it's do or die, and our yankee boy
Does his bit that we may live,
In a world where all may have a "say."
He's conscious always of his country's aim
which is Liberty for all,
"Hip Hip Hooray!" is all he'll say,
As he marches to the Flanders front.

That boy has sailed o'er the ocean...

Text Authorship:

  • by John McCrae (1872 - 1918)

Go to the general single-text view

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

3. Tom sails away
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
Scenes from my childhood are with me,
I'm in the lot behind our house upon the hill,
A spring day's sun is setting,
mother with Tom in her arms
is coming towards the garden;
the lettuce rows are showing green.
Thinner grows the smoke o'er the town,
stronger comes the breeze from the ridge,
'Tis after six, the whistles have blown,
the milk train's gone down the valley
Daddy is coming up the hill from the mill,
We run down the lane to meet him
But today! In freedom's cause Tom sailed away
for over there, over there!
Scenes from my childhood 
are floating before my eyes.

Text Authorship:

  • by Charles Edward Ives (1874 - 1954), written 1917

Go to the general single-text view

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

  • FRE French (Français) (Guy Laffaille) , "Tom navigue au loin", copyright © 2015, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
Total word count: 457
Gentle Reminder

This website began in 1995 as a personal project by Emily Ezust, who has been working on it full-time without a salary since 2008. Our research has never had any government or institutional funding, so if you found the information here useful, please consider making a donation. Your help is greatly appreciated!
–Emily Ezust, Founder

Donate

We use cookies for internal analytics and to earn much-needed advertising revenue. (Did you know you can help support us by turning off ad-blockers?) To learn more, see our Privacy Policy. To learn how to opt out of cookies, please visit this site.

I acknowledge the use of cookies

Contact
Copyright
Privacy

Copyright © 2025 The LiederNet Archive

Site redesign by Shawn Thuris