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;

He faced me with his villainy;

He laugh’d, and said, ‘She gave it me.’

We search’d 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.