Elemental, prodigious, indomitable, the spirit of Winston Churchill prevailed even as sickness shrouded his senses and the world waited to write his eulogies. Statesman and politician, historian and painter, orater and adventurer, his versatility, energy and excellence made him a revered and legendary figure ten years before his death. But imposing as his accomplishments are--his thirty volumes, his Nobel Prize, his magnificient speeches, his lucid grasp of European politics, his war-time greatness--it is ultimately his spirit, the proud, fierce joy with which he lived, that is most awesome.

Churchill was to the last a Romantic. Supremely confident in the history of his people, in the values they nourished, and in his own destiny, he dominated the consciousness of his country and finally the West for three decades. At times rash and impetuous, at times cooly rational, always active, aggressive, directing, he made his voice heard whether in power in the Commons, out of office from Chartwell, or in War over static-filled radio. And he prevailed. Despite the stooped shoulders, the squat figure, the pudgy features, we see him in a grand tableau of English history. He belongs on the field at Blenheim, on the deck of the Victory, in a hushed Commons because he believed he belonged there.

Bring me my bow of burning gold!

Bring me my arrows of desire!

Bring me my spear! O clouds, unfold!

Bring me my charlot of fire!

I will not cease from mental flight,

Nor shall the sword sleep In my hand,

Till we have built Jerusalem

In England's green and pleasant land.

The words are William Blake's but the tone and spirit are Winston Churchill's. His was an almost biblical grandeur. And at his death we mourn not his passing but our loss.