We Shall Keep the Faith

[corydoras 468]

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 November 11, 2015 by corydoras

[Vagabond 1013]

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 November 12, 2015 by Vagabond

[poledark 50]

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

[John S 328]

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

[Steve Walker 941]

I didn't take one this year, though I donated. Not much point wearing it round the house.