It must be midnight now. Yes, it is midnight. But before you go to bed, bend down, put your ear against the ground. What do you hear? “I hear an endless tapping and a tramping to and fro: both are muffled: but they come from everywhere. Tap, tap, tap: pick, pick, pick: tra-mp, tra-mp, tra-mp.” So you see the circus-goers are not all gone to sleep. There is noise coming from the womb of earth, noise of men who tap and mine and dig and pass to and fro on their watch. What you have seen is the foam and froth of war: but underground is labour and throbbing and long watch. Which will one day bear their fruit. They will set the circus on fire. Then what pandemonium! Let us hope it will not be to-morrow!
15 July 1915
EARLIER POEMS
XXXII
A CALL TO ACTION
I
A THOUSAND years have passed away,
Cast back your glances on the scene,
Compare this England of to-day
With England as she once has been.
Fast beat the pulse of living then:
The hum of movement, throb of war,
The rushing mighty sound of men
Reverberated loud and far.
They girt their loins up and they trod
The path of danger, rough and high;
For Action, Action was their god,
“Be up and doing” was their cry.