Page:Rudyard Kipling - A diversity of creatures.djvu/142

130 They believed us and perished for it. Our state-craft, our learning Delivered them bound to the Pit and alive to the burning Whither they mirthfully hastened as jostling for honour. Not since her birth has our Earth seen such worth loosed upon her.

Nor was their agony brief, or once only imposed on them.
 * The wounded, the war-spent, the sick received no exemption:
 * Being cured they returned and endured and achieved our redemption,

Hopeless themselves of relief, till Death, marvelling, closed on them.

That flesh we had nursed from the first in all cleanness was given To corruption unveiled and assailed by the malice of Heaven— By the heart-shaking jests of Decay where it lolled on the wires— To be blanched or gay-painted by fumes—to be cindered by fires— To be senselessly tossed and retossed in stale mutilation From crater to crater. For this we shall take expiation.
 * But who shall return us our children?