“Daddy, what does ‘Lest’ mean?”
“I don’t know. I think it means something like ‘don’t’ or something else like that. I wished they used a better word.”
Lest We Forget was engraved on the tower were the old soldiers will stand on Nov. 11th. And the boy’s father was partly right. It means Don’t. But it also means more than that.
It was a long time ago, 1897, when the British world, which covered most of the world, was wildly celebrating their Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. Everyone, at least everyone who was British, was pumping their chests because their Queen Victoria ruled not only the waves but the beaches and deserts and cities and farms and people of every continent and ocean around the earth.
Not bad work for a little island.
It seemed the sun not only never set on the British Empire, but it WOULD never set where the Queen had her picture on the stamps and in the courtrooms and schools.
But then came a downer. The most celebrated poet in all the land, the man who always praised the British way of life, said hold on. Things sometimes change, especially when you brag too much or take too much for granted, or forget what it took to get to where you are.
It was Rudyard Kipling, the two fisted no nonsense poet who wrote, “If you can keep your head when all men doubt you, but make allowances for their doubting too..” You know that poem. It is good advice.
For his countrymen on the Jubilee he wrote a poem called Recessional. In it was the line “Lest we forget…” Lest we forget about the past we will not have a future.
Lest is an old word. It was an old word when Kipling used it. It means not only “don’t” but you should fear, should be afraid, of doing something. It is a powerful word.
The poem was still being quoted after World War I, which was only about 25 years later. They knew what Lest meant.
Not only don’t forget the past, be afraid to forget, otherwise there will be no future.
Mike
p.s. There will be a half hour special on Global Nov. 11. It will be called: Lest We Forget.
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