Mine Host
There
stands
a
hostel
by
a
travelled
way;
Life
is
the
road
and
Death
the
worthy
host;
Each
guest
he
greets,
nor
ever
lacks
to
say,
"How
have
ye
fared?"
They
answer
him,
the
most,
"This
lodging
place
is
other
than
we
sought;
We
had
intended
farther,
but
the
gloom
Came
on
apace,
and
found
us
ere
we
thought:
Yet
will
we
lodge.
Thou
hast
abundant
room."
Within
sit
haggard
men
that
speak
no
word,
No
fire
gleams
their
cheerful
welcome
shed;
No
voice
of
fellowship
or
strife
is
heard
But
silence
of
a
multitude
of
dead.
"Naught
can
I
offer
ye,"
quoth
Death,
"but
rest!"
And
to
his
chamber
leads
each
tired
guest.
John McCrae
John McCrae born in Guelph, Ontario, Canadian poet, soldier, and physician John McCrae earned his undergraduate and medical degrees at the University of Toronto, where he received the Gold Medal. McCrae’s well-known poem “In Flanders Fields” memorializes the April 1915 battle in Belgium’s Ypres salient. For 17 days, McCrae tended those injured in the battle. January 28, 1918, at the age of 45. McCrae was buried with full military honors in Wimereux Cemetery near Boulogne, France. His family home in Guelph is preserved as a museum, and the main street in Wimereux is now named Rue McCrae.