Over at Legal Insurrection they picked up on the Obama campaign slogan for 2012…FORWARD. Some critics mocked the echoes of early 20th century socialism to be found in the word.
But to me it brought to mind Macaulay’s splendid poem about the Roman hero Horatius and his two comrades blocking the path of an Etruscan army as it attempted to capture the narrow bridge across the River Tiber that gave access to Rome.
The heroic trio fought so savagely that the Etruscan soldiers in the front line hesitated before their onslaught. However those in the ranks behind who were safe from the Roman swords tried to persuade them back into the fray.
Was none who would be foremost to lead such dire attack:
But those behind cried ‘Forward!’, and those before cried ‘Back!’
And backward now and forward wavers the deep array;
And on the tossing sea of steel, to and fro the standards reel;
And the victorious trumpet-peal dies fitfully away.
Might not that ring true today when Obama and his team, safely ensconced in Washington and living off the public purse, demand greater sacrifices from those on the front line outside Washington in order to fill the government’s coffers and keep them in the style to which they have become accustomed.
But where oh where is there an American Horatius to keep those ravenous beasts at bay….
