Sections

Come, friends, and, in the closing light of day,
take up the brick and set it while you may;

and thus, in laying brick on brick, assemble
the future now, and its foundation lay.

Hear, in the tempo of the moment's drum,
the urgent call of this millennium,
and, setting to the task our hands with purpose,
help build with me the world that is to come.

A job, unfinished, falls to you and me:
An end to make of grinding poverty;

and that this work be hastily completed
should be our generation's legacy.

World leaders have conceived a set of eight
ambitious goals, to finish by a date
that will, in scarce eight seasons, be upon us–
To work, my friends, as yet the hour is late!

Let us, by then, set out to halve the number
of those who must, by night, malnourished slumber;

and make the lack of schooling be no burden
that should a single child's life encumber.

The man and woman, equal in their worth,
should thus be treated from their hour of birth;

no infant should be caused, by want or hunger,
to prematurely perish from the earth.

To this end, every mother's health must be
considered of the highest urgency;

and likewise, let us seek, with equal effort,
to end infectious scourge and malady.

A global partnership must we create–
This burden is our generation's fate:
To be good stewards of the land and seas
and air;

the living planet will not wait.

As this day fades to cool, oncoming night,
another dawn already lies in sight,
as souls, now, somewhere on our turning planet,
are waking in tomorrow morning's light.

The seeds of action that we sow today
are, thus, tomorrow's harvest;

so I pray
that we might, with the wise professor's guidance,
the future's positive foundation lay.

So set the brick with me and heed the drum
that bids us build this new millennium;

and thus, by our deeds, might we be found worthy
by our Creator in the world to come.

horseradish