Poems of the Great War/To England: To Strike Quickly
TO ENGLAND: TO STRIKE QUICKLY
FIGHT, since thou must; strike quick and fierce,
So when this tyrant for too long
Hath shook the blood out of his ears
He may have learned the price of wrong.
Let him learn this, that the due of grief
Of his own vice he cannot ban
By outrage of a highway thief;
Let him remember the Corsican,
Whom England only durst not dread
By sea or shore, but faced alone,
Nor stayed for pity of her dead
Until the despot's day was done.
Strike, England, quickly, make an end
Of him who seeks a deal with thee.
If he would bargain for thy friend,
What would he trade for Liberty?