"So, to this day, when friend meets friend, the word of salute
Is still 'Rejoice!'—his word which brought rejoicing indeed.
So is Pheidippides happy for ever,—the noble strong man
Who could race like a God, bear the face of a God, whom a God loved so well
He saw the land saved he had helped to save, and was suffered to tell
Such tidings, yet never decline, but, gloriously as he began,
So to end gloriously—once to shout, thereafter be mute:
'Athens is saved!' Pheidippides dies in the shout for his meed."
FOOTNOTES: