When battles were fought <br />With a chivalrous sense of should and ought, <br />In spirit men said, <br />"End we quick or dead, <br />Honour is some reward! <br />Let us fight fair -- for our own best or worst; <br />So, Gentlemen of the Guard, <br />Fire first!" <br /> <br />In the open they stood, <br />Man to man in his knightlihood: <br />They would not deign <br />To profit by a stain <br />On the honourable rules, <br />Knowing that practise perfidy no man durst <br />Who in the heroic schools <br />Was nurst. <br /> <br />But now, behold, what <br />Is war with those where honour is not! <br />Rama laments <br />Its dead innocents; <br />Herod howls: "Sly slaughter <br />Rules now! Let us, by modes once called accurst, <br />Overhead, under water, <br />Stab first."<br /><br />Thomas Hardy<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/then-and-now-2/
