Explore "The Outlaws" by Rudyard Kipling on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
1914.
Through learned and laborious years / They set themselves to find / Fresh terrors and undreamed-of fears / To heap upon mankind.
All that they drew from Heaven above / Or digged from earth beneath, / They laid into their treasure-trove / And arsenals of death:
While, for well-weighed advantage sake, / Ruler and ruled alike / Built up the faith they meant to break / When the fit hour should strike.
They traded with the careless earth, / And good return it gave; / They plotted by their neighbour's hearth / The means to make him slave.
When all was ready to their hand / They loosed their hidden sword, / And utterly laid waste a land / Their oath was pledged to guard.
Coldly they went about to raise / To life and make more dread / Abominations of old days, / That men believed were dead.
They paid the price to reach their goal / Across a world in flame; / But their own hate slew their own soul / Before that victory came.