C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Walter Herries Pollock (1850–1926)

I FOUND him openly wearing her token;

I knew that her troth could never be broken:

I laid my hand on the hilt of my sword,—

He did the same, and he spoke no word.

I faced him with his villainy;

He laughed, and said, “She gave it me.”

We searched for seconds, they soon were found:

They measured our swords; they measured the ground:

They held to the deadly work too fast—

They thought to gain our place at last.

We fought in the sheen of a wintry wood;

The fair white snow was red with his blood:

But his was the victory, for, as he died,

He swore by the rood that he had not lied.