Page:Poems of Patriotism (1942).djvu/26

 Get off your downy cots of ease,
 * There’s work that must be done.

Great danger’s riding on the seas,
 * The storm is coming on.

Don’t think that it will quickly pass.
 * Who smiles at distant fate

And waits until it strikes, alas!
 * Has roused himself too late.

Who thinks the fight will end before
 * The need of him arrives,

Is lengthening this brutal war
 * And costing many lives.

For over us that storm shall break
 * Ere many weeks have fled,

And we shall pay for our mistake
 * In fields of mangled dead.

Be ready when the foe shall near,
 * Be there to strike him hard;

Let us, though he be miles from here,
 * Be standing now on guard.