And staring face to face,
I shot at him as he at me,
And killed him in his place.
I shot him dead because —
Because he was my foe,
Just so: my foe of course he was;
That's clear enough; although
He thought he'd 'list, perhaps,
Off-hand like — just as I —
Was out of work — had sold his traps —
No other reason why.
Yes; quaint and curious war is!
You shoot a fellow down
You'd treat, if met where any bar is,
Or help to half-a-crown.
The speaker changes from the first-person ‘I’ to the second-person ‘You’, as if drawing in the company around him and the reader … and maybe the world. The simple words ‘shoot a fellow down’ are in contrast to the magnitude of what humanity does in war. 

The Man He Killed