When poppies flare and lilies smile;
How soon the fleeting minute dies...
Beautiful poem, Lady! Thanks for sharing it with us!
"-- BUT A SHORT TIME TO LIVE"
Our little hour, -- how swift it flies
When poppies flare and lilies smile;
How soon the fleeting minute dies,
Leaving us but a little while
To dream our dream, to sing our song,
To pick the fruit, to pluck the flower,
The Gods -- They do not give us long, --
One little hour.
Our little hour, -- how short it is
When Love with dew-eyed loveliness
Raises her lips for ours to kiss
And dies within our first caress.
Youth flickers out like wind-blown flame,
Sweets of to-day to-morrow sour,
For Time and Death, relentless, claim
Our little hour.
Our little hour, -- how short a time
To wage our wars, to fan our hates,
To take our fill of armoured crime,
To troop our banners, storm the gates.
Blood on the sword, our eyes blood-red,
Blind in our puny reign of power,
Do we forget how soon is sped
Our little hour?
Our little hour, -- how soon it dies:
How short a time to tell our beads,
To chant our feeble Litanies,
To think sweet thoughts, to do good deeds.
The altar lights grow pale and dim,
The bells hang silent in the tower --
So passes with the dying hymn
Our little hour.
Leslie Coulson
Simple, profound and timeless ---
~ LadyX
One of the reasons why we hear little about the Chosin Reservoir action is that the US Marines should have never been there in the first place.
This short piece could not begin to describe the heroism displayed by the First Marine Division there.
Suffice it to say that the 1st Marine Division, 16,000 men strong, were sent on a fools errand to the Yalu in the winter of 1950.
In November, 9 Chinese divisions, numbering 120,000 men , stopped the Marines about one hundred miles short of their objective.
The Chinese quickly surrounded and cut off the marines. Fighting for days on end without sleep, and enduring frostbite in temperatures that dipped to minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit, the marines not only fought their way out, but they also brought their equipment and their own dead with them, while inflicting tremendous casualties on the attacking Chinese.
It is from the Chosin Reservoir action that we get several memorable quotations from Marine Corps legends:
"We've been looking for the enemy for some time now. We've finally found him. We're surrounded. That simplifies things."
(Col. Lewis "Chesty" Puller)
"Gentlemen, we are not retreating. We are merely advancing in another direction."
(General O.P. Smith)
Smith's words were not so much bravado as they were the cold truth.
