Rail not at Mammon, helots of to-day,Nor curse Bellona, goddess of the sword,Nor Tyranny, of Toil meet overlord:This is your covenant — “You must obey!”Under its ban your helot-mothers lay;Your sires, slave-born to slave-born mothers, pouredThe gluttons’ wine, or cringed for bed and board:Why murmur then? And whence your blank dismay?
Not with red rite of sword on Strife’s wan hill,’Mid clash of arms and pomp of war’s estate,Was Freedom slain, and her strong sons laid low,But in some wild red dawning long ago,When Man, the savage, took his savage mate,And beat, and bent, and broke her to his will.
Sources, publication & text notesReference details
Canonical recordPOEM-001963
Copy-textPitt — The Horses of the Hills and Other Verses (1911); SRC-000021 controls every published character; independent witness comparison complete; no readings blended.
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