Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ON MR. CHURCHILL'S SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY (NOVEMBER 30, 1944), by CHARLES WILLIAM BRODRIBB


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ON MR. CHURCHILL'S SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY (NOVEMBER 30, 1944), by                    
First Line: No pause now for campaigner or for man!
Last Line: And ask who lived as he at threescore ten!
Subject(s): Churchill, Winston (1874-1965)


No pause now for campaigner or for man!
No climacteric this—the Psalmist's span!
Let Churchill take the milestone in his stride,
And treat a birthday as a foe defied.
Earth's champion! Whom, as war's full doom draws near,
The free and true love more, the bad more fear;
Who, in his Marlborough's manner soldier first,
Long in the Commons and in councils versed,
So touched our instincts that with one consent
We hailed him all men's man in Parliament;
Who in the nation's night made hope respire,
And blew our damped-down speech to sparks of fire;
Who in the Cabinet or in the street
By constant presence kept bombed London sweet;
Who, would he fare abroad, with eye benign
Was to Expectance as the victory-sign.
Of faith unlimited, a boy to dare,
Refreshed by ocean and enlarged by air,
Within the last five circlings of the sun
Where has he not been, what has he not done?
Seek you his match? Search through time's roll of men,
And ask who lived as he at threescore ten!





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