Even as the Beasts

From The Birmingham Age Herald, December 31, 1914. By Lord Byron.

There is no hope for nations!—Search the page
Of many thousand years—the daily scene,
The flow and ebb of each recurring age,
The everlasting To Be and Hath Been,
Hath taught us naught, or little; still we lean
On things that rot beneath our weight and wear
Our strength away in wrestling with the air;
For ’tis our nature strikes us down; the beasts
Slaughtered in hourly hecatombs for feasts
Are of as high an order—they must go
Even where their driver goads them, though to slaughter.
Ye men, who pour your blood for kings as water,
What have they given your children in return?
A heritage of servitude and woes,
A blindfold bondage, where your hire is blows!