Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922.

Mortal Combat

Mary Elizabeth Coleridge (1861–1907)

IT is because you were my friend,

I fought you as the devil fights.

Whatever fortune God may send,

For once I set the world to rights.

And that was when I thrust you down,

And stabb’d you twice and twice again,

Because you dared take off your crown,

And be a man like other men.