and keep the bridge

[incandescens]

Have just been writing Christmas cards for foreign friends. No, it's not that there are too many -- just that there are, you know, a lot of them. Not that I object . . .

Incidentally, writing Christmas cards takes up far more time than one remembers it doing, from year to year. Where has the evening gone?

---

Horatius

[...]

Then out spake brave Horatius,
The Captain of the Gate:
"To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late.
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers,
And the temples of his Gods,

And for the tender mother
Who dandled him to rest,
And for the wife who nurses
His baby at her breast,
And for the holy maidens
Who feed the eternal flame,
To save them from false Sextus
That wrought the deed of shame?

Hew down the bridge, Sir Consul,
With all the speed ye may;
I, with two more to help me,
Will hold the foe in play.
In yon strait path a thousand
May well be stopped by three.
Now who will stand on either hand,
And keep the bridge with me?"

[...]

-- Macaulay