England To Germany In 1914

“O ENGLAND, may God punish thee!” —Is it that Teuton genius flowers Only to breathe malignity Upon its friend of earlier hours? —We have eaten your bread, you have eaten ours, We have loved your burgs, your pines’ green moan, Fair Rhine-stream, and its storied towers; Your shining souls of deathless dowers Have won us as they were our own:

We have nursed no dreams to shed your blood, We have matched your might not rancorously, Save a flushed few whose blatant mood You heard and marked as well as we To tongue not in their country’s key; But yet you cry with face aflame, “O England, may God punish thee!” And foul in onward history, And present sight, your ancient name.

Autumn 1914.