Explore "A Song of the Guns" by Gilbert Frankau on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
These are our masters, the slim / Grim muzzles that irk in the pit; / That chafe for the rushing of wheels, / For the teams plunging madly to bit / As the gunners wing down to unkey, / For the trails sweeping half-circle-right, / For the six breech-blocks clashing as one / To a target viewed clear on the sight -- / Gray masses the shells search and tear / Into fragments that bunch as they run -- / For the hour of the red battle-harvest, / The dream of the slaves of the gun!
We have bartered our souls to the guns; / Every fibre of body and brain / Have we trained to them, chained to them. Serfs?
Aye! but proud of the weight of our chain, / Of our backs that are bowed to their workings, / To hide them and guard and disguise, / Of our ears that are deafened with service, / Of hands that are scarred, and of eyes / Grown hawklike with marking their prey, / Of wings that are slashed as with swords / When we hover, the turn of a blade / From the death that is sweet to our lords.