When in that hour of grief and queenlessness
You, on your charger white as driven snow,
Shared in a mourning nation’s grief and woe
There was no voice but did the Kaiser bless;
To-day in Armageddon’s sore distress
We know you better, for at last you show
The tyrant undisguised, we count you foe
Both to ourselves and to God’s righteousness.
Your hand it was that careless of all ill
Unsheathed the sword to drench a world in
blood,
Your heart it was that in its terrible lust
Would trample treaties to dishonoured dust
And hack your way to Empire; but God still
Reigns, and God’s words are Peace and
Brotherhood.
(The European War 1914-1915 Poems, p. 22)