Robert Louis Stevenson Prelude By sunny market-place and street Wherever I go my drum I beat, And wherever I go in my coat of red The ribbons flutter about my head. I seek recruits for wars to come - For slaughterless wars I beat the drum, And the shilling I give to each new ally Is hope to live and courage to die. I know that new recruits shall come Wherever I beat the sounding drum, Till the roar of the march by country and town Shall shake the tottering Dagons down. For I was objectless as they And loitering idly day by day; But whenever I heard the recruiters come, I left my all to follow the drum.