Reveille is the mascot of Texas A&M University. The current Reveille, Reveille VI, is a American Collie. The tradition states that the first Reveille was a stray mutt brought back to campus when a car full of Aggies returning from a football game hit her. She was named Reveille when the next morning she barked all during the morning “Reveille”.

A sophomore in E-2 Company of the Corps of Cadets takes care her. He takes her with him everywhere, into class, on dates, and back in the dorm. She is also the highest ranking member of the Corps of Cadets being a five star general. Which means that members of the corps will salute her.

Current tradition states that if Reveille barks during class the professor has to let the class out. This is because Reveille doesn't believe it’s time for class.

Reveille is a rap-metal band from Harvard, Massachusetts that many people compare to Rage Against the Machine much like Silverchair was compared to Pearl Jam in the past. Take all of the political activism out of RATM's music and replace it with darker, almost goth lyrics and you have a good start of knowing what they sound like.

Their only major label release to date is Laced.

IV - Reveille

Wake: the silver dusk returning
   Up the beach of darkness brims,
And the ship of sunrise burning
   Strands upon the eastern rims.

Wake: the vaulted shadow shatters,
   Trampled to the floor it spanned,
And the tent of night in tatters
   Straws the sky-pavilioned land.

Up, lad, up, ’tis late for lying:
   Hear the drums of morning play;
Hark, the empty highways crying
   ‘Who’ll beyond the hills away?’

Towns and countries woo together,
   Forelands beacon, belfries call;
Never lad that trod on leather
   Lived to feast his heart with all.

Up, lad: thews that lie and cumber
   Sunlit pallets never thrive;
Morns abed and daylight slumber
   Were not meant for man alive.

Clay lies still, but blood’s a rover;
   Breath’s a ware that will not keep.
Up, lad: when the journey’s over
   There’ll be time enough to sleep.

A.E. Housman, A Shropshire Lad
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Soldiers have always been lazy. It was the Romans that first noticed this problem, and investigated ways of getting their elite forces up in the morning. It must have made a big difference - they conquered most of Western Europe!
The Roman system probably used some sort of drum and trumpet call, as evidence suggests much of the troop organisation was done through pre-arranged melodies and rhythms. This is then the first example of a Reveille; a musical passage used to wake up troops in the morning.

The word comes from réveillez the French for "to wake", although it is unclear at what point a dyslexic and deaf officer butchered the imperative second person plural form of the verb to give is the word we have today.

The modern British Reveille has roots in the sevententh century, although it has changed over the years. Its words are as follows:

Rev-eil-lee! Rev-eil-lee is sounding.
The bugle calls you from your sleep; it is the break of day.
You've got to do your duty or you will get no pay.
Come, wake yourself, rouse yourself out of your sleep
And throw off the blankets and take a good peek at all
The bright signs of the break of day, so get up and do not delay.

Get Up!

Or-der-ly officer is on his round!
And if you're still a-bed he will send you to the guard
And then you'll get a drill and that will be a bitter pill:
So be up when he comes, be up when he comes,
Like a soldier at his post, a soldier at his post, all ser-ene.

It is not yet clear who is supposed to sing or play this, as everyone is supposed to be asleep.

This is obviously long enough to wake you up and put you back to sleep again, so a shortened version, the Rouse was created, with only three lines of words and a very catchy tune. Most people will associate the Reveille with the military parades, as it is played following the minute's silence after the Last Post. However, this tune is actually the Rouse, which is chosen because of its conciseness.

Welcome to the bitter world

Of four o'clock in the morning

Where dreams have ended

Brief journeys that seemed endless

through funhouse mirrors that show you

distorted images of yourself

blown this way and that by winds of loneliness and lust

Till finally lost, abandoned, wandering running

Through labyrinthine  cityscapes and ruins

of massive buildings that never were nor ever could be

you wake in darkness

dawn is some way off

naked in the tumbled wreck of bedclothes

stripped of even the comforting illusion

that it was all, after all, a dream.

Re*veil"le (?), n. [F. r'eveil, fr. r'eveiller to awake; pref. re- re- + pref. es- (L. ex) + veiller to awake, watch, L. vigilare to watch. The English form was prob. taken by mistake from the French imper. r'eveillez,2d pers. pl. See Vigil.] Mil.

The beat of drum, or bugle blast, about break of day, to give notice that it is time for the soldiers to rise, and for the sentinels to forbear challenging.

"Sound a reveille."

Dryden.

For at dawning to assail ye Here no bugles sound reveille. Sir W. Scott.

 

© Webster 1913.

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