When battles were fought

With a chivalrous sense of Should and Ought,

   In spirit men said,

   “End we quick or dead,

   Honour is some reward!

Let us fight fair—for our own best or worst;

   So, Gentlemen of the Guard,

      Fire first!”

   In the open they stood,

Man to man in his knightlihood:

   They would not deign

   To profit by a stain

   On the honourable rules,

Knowing that practise perfidy no man durst

   Who in the heroic schools

      Was nurst.

   But now, behold, what

Is warfare wherein honour is not!

   Rama laments

   Its dead innocents:

   Herod breathes: “Sly slaughter

Shall rule!  Let us, by modes once called accurst,

   Overhead, under water,

      Stab first.”

1915.