<html xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><body><h1 align="center" class="head">The Call</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line"><span class="smallcaps">Lad</span>, with the merry smile and the eyes</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Quick as a hawk's and clear as the day,</p><p class="line">You, who have counted the game the prize,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Here is the game of games to play.</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Never a goal -- the captains say --</p><p class="line">Matches the one that's needed now:</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Put the old blazer and cap away --</p><p class="line">England's colours await your brow.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Man, with the square-set jaws and chin,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Always, it seems, you have moved to your end</p><p class="line">Sure of yourself, intent to win</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Fame and wealth and the power to bend --</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">All that you've made you're called to spend,</p><p class="line">All that you've sought you're asked to miss --</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">What's ambition compared with this</p><p class="line">That a man lay down his life for his friend?</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Dreamer, oft in your glancing mind</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Brave with drinking the faerie brew,</p><p class="line">You have smitten the ogres blind</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">When the fair Princess cried out to you.</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Dreamer, what if your dreams are true?</p><p class="line">Yonder's a bayonet, magical, since</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Him whom it strikes, the blade sinks through --</p><p class="line">Take it and strike for England, Prince!</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Friend with the face so hard and worn,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">The Devil and you have sometime met,</p><p class="line">And now you curse the day you were born,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">And want one boon of God -- to forget.</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Ah, but I know, and yet -- and yet --</p><p class="line">I think, out there in the shrapnel spray,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">You shall stand up and not regret</p><p class="line">The Life that gave so splendid a day.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Lover of ease, you've lolled and forgot</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">All the things that you meant to right;</p><p class="line">Life has been soft for you, has it not?</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">What offer does England make to-night?</p><p class="line">This -- to toil and to march and to fight</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">As never you've dreamed since your life began;</p><p class="line">This -- to carry the steel-swept height,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">This -- to know that you've played the man!</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Brothers, brothers, the time is short,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Nor soon again shall it so betide</p><p class="line">That a man may pass from the common sort</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Sudden and stand by the heroes' side.</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Are there some that being named yet bide? --</p><p class="line">Hark once more to the clarion call --</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Sounded by him who deathless died --</p><p class="line">"This day England expects you all."</p></div><p class="byline">R. E. VERNÈDE</p><em>Times, August</em> 19, 1914</body></html> · Great War