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We Shall Keep the Faith


corydoras

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We Shall Keep the Faith

 

Moina Michael, November 1918

 

Oh! you who sleep in Flanders Fields,

Sleep sweet - to rise anew!

We caught the torch you threw

And holding high, we keep the Faith

With All who died.

 

We cherish, too, the poppy red

That grows on fields where valor led;

It seems to signal to the skies

That blood of heroes never dies,

But lends a lustre to the red

Of the flower that blooms above the dead

In Flanders Fields.

 

And now the Torch and Poppy Red

We wear in honor of our dead.

Fear not that ye have died for naught;

We'll teach the lesson that ye wrought

In Flanders Fields.

Edited by corydoras
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The problem isn't what people don't know, it's what they know that just ain't so.
Vaut mieux ne rien dire et passer pour un con que de parler et prouver que t'en est un!
Mi, ch’fais toudis à m’mote

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Yes, very apt.

 

Who needs to remember ? Evidently quite a lot of people.

 

Yesterday I had to attend my local GP surgery to give a blood sample. By chance my appointment was for 11 am. I noted approvingly a card prominently displayed, announcing the staff would observe a two minute silence - which it did, whilst we were still in the waiting room.

 

Afterwards ( it was by then about 11.30) we had errands to do in the town, which resulted in my arrival back at our car ten minutes before Norma. I spent that ten minutes leaning on some nearby railings and casually observing the world passing by. After a few minutes, I was observing that world more closely, as I realised that nobody, but nobody, was wearing a poppy. There was, however, a poppy seller standing just outside the Waitrose store. I did not see anyone buy one.

 

Is this a case of Kipling's words,

 

....It's Tommy this, and Tommy that, and chuck him out, the brute,

But it's "saviour of his country" when the guns begin to shoot....

 

and nobody amongst Crowborough's affluent shoppers had worn a poppy that day -

 

or have I been unaware for the last seventy years or so, that it is customary to remove poppies once the two-minute silence has been observed ?

 

I have always thought one wore the poppy "until the going down of the sun"

Edited by Vagabond

 

 

RNLI Governor

 

World species 471 : UK species 105 : English species 95 .

Certhia's world species - 215

Eclectic "husband and wife combined" world species 501

 

"Nothing matters very much, few things matter at all" - Plato

...only things like fresh bait and cold beer...

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Dave, have to agree with you, but..they are awkward things to fix to your clothes. I have lost two this year, both must have fell off while fishing, just left with the pin.

 

Den

"When through the woods and forest glades I wanderAnd hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees;When I look down from lofty mountain grandeur,And hear the brook, and feel the breeze;and see the waves crash on the shore,Then sings my soul..................

for all you Spodders. https://youtu.be/XYxsY-FbSic

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I always give money, sometimes take a poppy, but never hardly ever wear it.

John S

Quanti Canicula Ille In Fenestra

 

Species caught in 2017 Common Ash, Hawthorn, Hazel, Scots Pine, White Willow.

Species caught in 2016: Alder, Blackthorn, Common Ash, Crab Apple, Left Earlobe, Pedunculate Oak, Rock Whitebeam, Scots Pine, Smooth-leaved Elm, Swan, Wayfaring tree.

Species caught in 2015: Ash, Bird Cherry, Black-Headed Gull, Common Hazel, Common Whitebeam, Elder, Field Maple, Gorse, Puma, Sessile Oak, White Willow.

Species caught in 2014: Big Angry Man's Ear, Blackthorn, Common Ash, Common Whitebeam, Downy Birch, European Beech, European Holly, Hawthorn, Hazel, Scots Pine, Wych Elm.
Species caught in 2013: Beech, Elder, Hawthorn, Oak, Right Earlobe, Scots Pine.

Species caught in 2012: Ash, Aspen, Beech, Big Nasty Stinging Nettle, Birch, Copper Beech, Grey Willow, Holly, Hazel, Oak, Wasp Nest (that was a really bad day), White Poplar.
Species caught in 2011: Blackthorn, Crab Apple, Elder, Fir, Hawthorn, Horse Chestnut, Oak, Passing Dog, Rowan, Sycamore, Willow.
Species caught in 2010: Ash, Beech, Birch, Elder, Elm, Gorse, Mullberry, Oak, Poplar, Rowan, Sloe, Willow, Yew.

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