<html xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><body><h1 align="center" class="head">Then and Now</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line" style="text-indent:7%"><span class="smallcaps">When</span> battles were fought</p><p class="line">With a chivalrous sense of should and ought,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:7%">In spirit men said,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:7%">"End we quick or dead,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:7%">Honour is some reward!</p><p class="line">Let us fight fair -- for our own best or worst;</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:7%">So, Gentlemen of the Guard,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:9%">Fire first!"</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line" style="text-indent:7%">In the open they stood,</p><p class="line">Man to man in his knightlihood:</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:7%">They would not deign</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:7%">To profit by a stain</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:7%">On the honourable rules,</p><p class="line">Knowing that practise perfidy no man durst</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:7%">Who in the heroic schools</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:9%">Was nurst.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line" style="text-indent:7%">But now, behold, what</p><p class="line">Is war with those where honour is not!</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:7%">Rama laments</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:7%">Its dead innocents;</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:7%">Herod howls: "Sly slaughter</p><p class="line">Rules now! Let us, by modes once called accurst,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:7%">Overhead, under water,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:9%">Stab first."</p></div><p class="byline">Thomas Hardy</p></body></html> · Great War