Thomas Osbert Mordaunt (1730–1809) was a British officer and poet, known for "The Call".
Mordaunt was the son of Charles Mordaunt, also a soldier. His grandfather, Brigadier-General Lewis Mordaunt, was the younger brother of Charles Mordaunt, 3rd Earl of Peterborough, sometime First Lord of the Treasury.[1] [2] He was commissioned ensign and lieutenant in the 2nd Regiment of Foot Guards on 27 January 1753, and promoted captain-lieutenant in the 10th Regiment of Dragoons on 25 December 1755.[3] He is recorded as having ultimately achieved the rank of major general.[2]
Mordaunt 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. Scott had merely quoted a stanza of the poem at the beginning of Chapter 34 (Chapter XIII of Volume II) of his novel Old Mortality.[4]
One Crowded Hour, Tim Bowden's biography of Australian combat cameraman Neil Davis, takes its title from a phrase used in "The Call". Arthur Conan Doyle's short story, One Crowded Hour,[5] makes ironic use of the same phrase.
. Daniel Mackinnon . Origin and Services of the Coldstream Guards . II . Richard Bentley . London . 1833 . 486–487 .