Thomas Hardy - A Call To National Service lyrics

Up and be doing, all who have a hand To lift, a back to bend. It must not be In times like these that vaguely linger we To air our vaunts and hopes; and leave our land Untended as a wild of weeds and sand. - Say, then, "I come!" and go, O women and men Of palace, ploughshare, easel, counter, pen; That scareless, scathless, England still may stand. Would years but let me stir as once I stirred At many a dawn to take the forward track, And with a stride plunged on to enterprize, I now would speed like yester wind that whirred Through yielding pines; and serve with never a slack, So loud for promptness all around outcries! March 1917.