IV

     And how stands she, artillerist,
     Among the vapours waxing dense,
     With cannon charged?  ’Tis hist! and hist! 
     And now she screws a gouty fist,
     And now she counts to clutch her pence.

     V

     With shudders chill as aconite,
     The couchant chewer of the cud
     Will start at times in pussy fright
     Before the dogs, when reads her sprite
     The streaks predicting streams of blood.

     VI

     She thinks they may mean something; thinks
     They may mean nothing:  haply both. 
     Where darkness all her daylight drinks,
     She fain would find a leader lynx,
     Not too much taxing mental sloth.

     VII

     Cleft like the fated house in twain,
     One half is, Arm! and one, Retrench! 
     Gambetta’s word on dull MacMahon: 
     ‘The cow that sees a passing train’: 
     So spies she Russian, German, French.

     VIII

     She? no, her weakness:  she unbraced
     Among those athletes fronting storms! 
     The muscles less of steel than paste,
     Why, they of nature feel distaste
     For flash, much more for push, of arms.

     IX

     The poet sings, and well know we,
     That ‘iron draws men after it.’ 
     But towering wealth may seem the tree
     Which bears the fruit indemnity,
     And draw as fast as battle’s fit,

     X

     If feeble be the hand on guard,
     Alas, alas!  And nations are
     Still the mad forces, though the scarred. 
     Should they once deem our emblem Pard
     Wagger of tail for all save war; —

     XI

     Mechanically screwed to flail
     His flanks by Presses conjuring fear; —
     A money-bag with head and tail; —
     Too late may valour then avail! 
     As you beheld, my cannonier,

     XII

     When with the staff of Benedek,
     On the plateau of Koniggratz,
     You saw below that wedgeing speck;
     Foresaw proud Austria rammed to wreck,
     Where Chlum drove deep in smoky jets.

     February 1887.

     To children:  For tyrants

     I

     Strike not thy dog with a stick! 
     I did it yesterday: 
     Not to undo though I gained
     The Paradise:  heavy it rained
     On Kobold’s flanks, and he lay.

     II

     Little Bruno, our long-ear pup,
     From his hunt had come back to my heel. 
     I heard a sharp worrying sound,
     And Bruno foamed on the ground,
     With Koby as making a meal.

     III

     I did what I could not undo
     Were the gates of the Paradise shut
     Behind me:  I deemed it was just. 
     I left Koby crouched in the dust,
     Some yards from the woodman’s hut.