III.

'Twas to this weak, ignoble end they lost

Their unity, competing one and all,

While Chinese "diplomats" were still and smiled,

And China's monarch held them all to be

Barbarians, unfit to see his face.

'Twas pitiful to see the highest aims

Give way before base purposes of greed,

To watch the little path, that had been won

By sturdy valour of the foremost few,