And past the noble silence of your graves
The merging waters narrow and deploy.
But not in vain, not all in vain, thank God;
All that you were and all you might have been
Was given to the cold effacing sod,
Unstrewn with garlands green;
The valour and the vision that were yours
Lie not with broken spears and fallen towers,
With glories perishable of all things seen.
Children of one dear land and every sea,
At last fulfilment comes--the night is o'er;
Now, as at Samothrace, swift Victory
Walks winged on the shore;
And England, deathless Mother of the dead,
Gathers, with lifted eyes and unbowed head,
Her silent sons into her arms once more.
Crowns and thrones have rocked and toppled of late, but our King and Queen,
by their unsparing and unfaltering devotion to duty, by their simplicity of
life and unerring instinct for saying and doing the right thing, have not
only set a fine example, but strengthened their hold on the loyalty of all
classes. And King Albert, who defied Germany at the outset, shared the
dangers of his soldiers in retreat and disaster, and throughout the war
proved an inspiration to his people, has been spared to lead them to
victory and has gloriously come into his own again. His decision to resist
Germany was perhaps the most heroic act of the War, and he has emerged from
his tremendous ordeal with world-wide prestige and unabated distaste for
the limelight.
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