MR CHURCHILL’S QUOTATION

Southland Times, Issue 24421, 29 April 1941, Page 5

MR CHURCHILL’S QUOTATION

Mr Churchill concluded his broadcast by quoting the last two stanzas from the poem “Say Not, The Struggle Naught Availcth,” by Arthur Hugh Clough. The words of the poem are: Say not, the struggle naught

availcth, The labour and the wounds are

vain, The enemy faints not, nor faileth, And as things have been, they remain.

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars; It may be, in yon smoke concealed, Your comrades chase e’en now the fliers, And, but for you, possess the field. For while the tired waves, vainly breaking, Seem here no painful inch to gain, Far back, through creeks and inlets making, Comes silent, flooding in, the main. And not by eastern windows only, When daylight comes, comes in the light; In front, the sun climbs slow, how slowly, But westward, look, the land is bright.

He recalled also Longfellow’s verse, written in his own handwriting by President Roosevelt, and sent to Mr Churchill by Mr Wendell L. Willkie: Sail on, O ship of State

Sail on, O union, strong and great, Humanity with all its fears,

With all the hopes of future years, Is hanging breathless on thy fate.

These were words to which Mr Churchill replied: “Give us the tools and we will finish the job.”