Thomas Osbert Mordaunt Biography

Thomas Osbert Mordaunt (1730–1809), a British officer and poet, is best remembered for his oft-quoted poem `The Call', written during the Seven Years' War of 1756–1763:

"Sound, sound the clarion, fill the fife!

Throughout the sensual world proclaim,

One crowded hour of glorious life

Is worth an age without a name."

For many years, the poem was incorrectly attributed to Mordaunt's contemporary, Sir Walter Scott.