<html xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><body><h1 align="" class="head">Enlisted, or The Recruits</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line">HUMBLY, O England, we offer what is of little worth,</p><p class="line">Just our bodies and souls and everything else we have;</p><p class="line">But thou with thy holy cause wilt hallow our common earth,</p><p class="line">Giving us strength in the battle—and peace, if need, in the grave.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Humble, O England, we are, for of hero-fathers we come,</p><p class="line">Men that contested with tyrants the mightier destinies;</p><p class="line">Philip of Spain we remember, and the ships that never went home.</p><p class="line">And him that was caught at last, and isled in the warder seas.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Humbly, O England, we bring thee life in its folly-stained youth.</p><p class="line">That which, it may be, has striven, but ever has slackened and tired;</p><p class="line">The faltering, often deceived, to combat now for the Truth,</p><p class="line">Dim-visioned, to smite for the morrow unknown but desired.</p></div><p>September, 1914.</p></body></html> · Great War