The whole day thro’, in contempt and pity,
I pass your houses and beat my drum,
In the roar of people that go and come,
In the sunlit streets of the city.
Hark! do you hear the ictus coming,
Mid the roar and clatter of feet?
Hark! in the ebb and flow of the street
Do you hear the sound of my drumming?
Sun and the fluttering ribbons blind me;
But still I beat as I travel the town,
And still the recruits come manfully down,
And the march grows long behind me.
In time to the drum the feet fall steady,
The feet fall steady and firm to hear,
And we cry, as we march, that the goal is near,
For all men are heroes already!