Wednesday Music Blogging

Dion - Abraham, Martin, and John

There are very few songs in existence that sum up an entire generation. This is one of them. You know why I posted this.

I owe a life debt to the Kennedy family, to RFK in particular, but I'd owe that debt despite the interactions I've had with the family, for the inspiration to do better, to do more, and to urge others to do the best they can.

Bobby would have been 81 this past Monday. John, of course, died 46 years ago, today.

The time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the marketplace;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.

Today the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.

Smart lad to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay
And early through the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.

Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears.

Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honors out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.

So set before its echoes fade,
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel up
The still defended challenge cup.

And round that early-laureled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl’s.

John F Kennedy
Robert F Kennedy