England to Germany in 1914

Autumn 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.