"_There were no stragglers, none_!" Let us never forget that cry of
exultant amazement wrung from the lips of an eye-witness, who saw the
young untried troops go over the parapet in the July dawn and disappear
into the hell beyond. And there in the packed graveyards that dot these
slopes lie thousands of them in immortal sleep; and as the Greeks in
after days knew no nobler oath than that which pledged a man by those
who fell at Marathon, so may the memory of those who fell here burn ever
in the heart of England, a stern and consecrating force.
"Life is but the pebble sunk,
Deeds the circle growing!"
And from the deeds done on this hillside, the suffering endured, the
life given up, the victory won, by every kind and type of man within the
British State--rich and poor, noble and simple, street-men from British
towns, country-men from British villages, men from Canadian prairies,
from Australian and New Zealand homesteads--one has a vision, as one
looks on into the future, of the impulse given here spreading out
through history, unquenched and imperishable.
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