Explore "The Covenant" by Rudyard Kipling on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
1914.
We thought we ranked above the chance of ill. / Others might fall, not we, for we were wise -- / Merchants in freedom. So, of our free-will / We let our servants drug our strength with lies. / The pleasure and the poison had its way / On us as on the meanest, till we learned / That he who lies will steal, who steals will slay. / Neither God's judgment nor man's heart was turned.
Yet there remains His Mercy -- to be sought / Through wrath and peril till we cleanse the wrong / By that last right which our forefathers claimed / When their Law failed them and its stewards were bought. / This is our cause. God help us, and make strong / Our wills to meet Him later, unashamed!