Today is March forth , It’s not just a date, it’s an imperative ! .. I think it’s the only day of the year that’s a command all on it’s own.. It’s the kind of thing General Patton or Napoleon might have said to his troops to spur them on to battle..
I see it’s aptly listed in google as *Do Something Day !”.. an imperative I have to admit I completely ignored.. I did absolutely nothing today..
OK.. I did do one thing: I tried finding texts with the words “march forth” in it.. and I found several interesting ones..
The first is a poem
A Curse For Kings
by Vachel Lindsay – American Poet (1879—1931)
A curse upon each king who leads his state,
No matter what his plea, to this foul game,
And may it end his wicked dynasty,
And may he die in exile and black shame.
If there is vengeance in the Heaven of Heavens,
What punishment could Heaven devise for these
Who fill the rivers of the world with dead,
And turn their murderers loose on all the seas!
Put back the clock of time a thousand years,
And make our Europe, once the world’s proud Queen,
A shrieking strumpet, furious fratricide,
Eater of entrails, wallowing obscene
In pits where millions foam and rave and bark,
Mad dogs and idiots, thrice drunk with strife;
While Science towers above;—a witch, red-winged:
Science we looked to for the light of life.
Curse me the men who make and sell iron ships,
Who walk the floor in thought, that they may find
Each powder prompt, each steel with fearful edge,
Each deadliest device against mankind.
Curse me the sleek lords with their plumes and spurs,
May Heaven give their land to peasant spades,
Give them the brand of Cain, for their pride’s sake,
And felon’s stripes for medals and for braids.
Curse me the fiddling, twiddling diplomats,
Haggling here, plotting and hatching there,
Who make the kind world but their game of cards,
Till millions die at turning of a hair.
What punishment will Heaven devise for these
Who win by others’ sweat and hardihood,
Who make men into stinking vultures’ meat,
Saying to evil still “Be thou my good”?
Ah, he who starts a million souls toward death
Should burn in utmost hell a million years!
—Mothers of men go on the destined wrack
To give them life, with anguish and with tears:—
Are all those childbed sorrows sneered away?
Yea, fools laugh at the humble christenings,
And cradle-joys are mocked of the fat lords:
These mothers’ sons made dead men for the Kings!
All in the name of this or that grim flag,
No angel-flags in all the rag-array—
Banners the demons love, and all Hell sings
And plays wild harps. Those flags march forth to-day!
The second is s in the Book of Morman : Helaman 1:19
19 But it came to pass that Coriantumr did march forth at the head of his numerous host, and came upon the inhabitants of the city, and their march was with such exceedingly great speed that there was no time for the Nephites to gather together their armies.
I even found it in the Holy Quran in Sura 9: Repentance
O ye who believe, what ailed you when ye were told to march forth in God’s way, that ye sank down heavily upon the earth? Were ye content with the life of this world instead of the next? \But the provision of this world’s life is but a little to the next. 39 Unless ye march forth He will punish you with grievous woe, and will put in. your stead a people other than you! Ye cannot hurt Him at all, for God is mighty over all!