Explore "After Troy" by Hilda Doolittle on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
We flung against their gods, / invincible, clear hate; / we fought; / frantic, we flung the last / imperious, desperate shaft and lost: / we knew the loss / before they ever guessed / fortune had tossed to them / her favour and her whim; / but how were we depressed? / we lost yet as we pressed / our spearsmen on their best, / we knew their line invincible / because there fell / on them no shiverings / of the white enchanteress, / radiant Aphrodite's spell:
we hurled our shafts of passion, / noblest hate, / and knew their cause was blest, / and knew their gods were nobler, / better taught in skill, / subtler with wit of thought, / yet had it been God's will / that _they_ not we should fall, / we know those fields had bled / with roses lesser red.