Saturday, May 26, 2012

Poppies

NRO reproduces a memo from Jason DeSena Trennert of Strategas Research Partners, a Wall Street firm, to his colleagues:
.... I travel around quite a bit and on my travels to the U.K. and Canada I would occasionally see men and women wearing red crepe-paper poppies. Either through complete cluelessness or stupidity, I had never learned or had forgotten that these were worn on Memorial Day as a remembrance of those who have died in our nation’s service. The practice takes its origin from the poem In Flanders Fields, written in 1915 by John McCrae.... Last year, I resolved myself to bring the poppy back to my little corner of the world. We’re buying 1,000 to give to friends and clients and colleagues. Please let us know if you’d like us to send you one. They’re only 16 cents a-piece so we’ll consider it an honor if we need to buy more. I’m going to encourage all of my colleagues here at Strategas to wear them on the Friday before and the Tuesday after Memorial Day. ....
The poem:

In Flanders Field

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

Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae,
Canadian Expeditionary Force,
1915


Poppies - By Jack Fowler - The Corner - National Review Online

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