Classic Poem

I've won the two tosses from Prescot;
Now hear me, and hearken and heed,
And pull that vile flower from your waistcoat,
And throw down that beast of a weed;
I'm going to give you the signal
I gave Harry Hunt at Boulogne,
The morning he met Major Bignell,
And shot him as dead as a stone;
For he must look round on his right hand
To watch the white flutter — that stops
His aim, for it takes off his sight, and
I cough while the handkerchief drops.
And you keep both eyes on his figure,
Old fellow, and don't take them off.
You've got the sawhandled hair trigger —
You sight him and shoot when I cough. Laurence (aside):

Though God will never forgive me,
Though men make light of my name,
Though my sin and my shame outlive me,
I shall not outlast my shame.
The coward, does he mean to miss me?
His right hand shakes like a leaf;
Shall I live for my friends to hiss me,
Of fools and of knaves the chief?
Shall I live for my foes to twit me?
He has master'd his nerve again —
He is firm, he will surely hit me —
Will he reach the heart or the brain?
One long look eastward and northward —
One prayer — " Our Father which art " —
And the cough chimes in with the fourth word,
And I shoot skyward — the heart!