The thin red line.

This sonnet is a brief symbolic meditation on the brevity of life and the "thin red line": by turns blood (stream/supply and life-giving), a boundary to be crossed (the Rubicon), the limit of our medical (and surgical) endeavors, and finally our horizon. "The thin red line" is also a metaphor for resistance, attributed in part to Kipling's poem Tommy : in particular to resilience by the few, against ostensibly superior forces. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).