Poems (Sackville)/The Helots
THE HELOTS
(Sparta, 500 b.c.)
In peace and in peril They feed on our lives,When the war-lust is sterile, With lashes, with knivesThey goad us, and rich with our life blood the land waxes fruitful and thrives.
What pain can defeat us? What terror dismay?What passion may heat us— Degenerate clay,Called forth at the bidding of princes mere bodies to torture and slay?
We have sprung from the dust; Not of ours was the breed,When the earth's barren crust, As the great gods decreed,Brought forth from its stones a new people tremendous in purpose and deed.
We follow despair; In our eyes is no light;Cold shadows ensnare And deaden our sight;We see but a darkness eternal—deep gulfs of deplorable night.
Down-trodden, down-smitten We live, for in deathHas a god's hand re-written The evil Life saith,The songs which Life sings in derision with bitter and insolent breath?
The greatest and fairest, The lords of the earth,Thou, Pluto, declarest Shall share in thy mirth—Shall laugh with thy laughter and slumber in meadows of infinite dearth.
How then if the strong men Thus prosper in HellShall the outcast among men Eternally dwell?If the kernel is crushed and made shapeless shall any take heed for the shell?
Of dust the gods made us And mocked us with life;In flesh they arrayed us, And filled us with strife:For a guerdon they gave us the fetter—for pleasure the lash and the knife,
For freedom we pine not, We claim no release;But we pray that the fine knot That binds us may creaseEach sinew, each nerve of our masters with pain that can fail not nor cease.
Our gods are not their gods— We worship alonePale Dæmons and sere gods Unpæaned, unknown—Whose favour no incense may quicken, whose anger no prayer may atone,
Not radiant Apollo, Whose voice if men longTo hear and to follow With glory of song,Will scatter their souls as the sea-flakes, as foam when the tempest is strong.
But a god of hushed weeping, Of terrible mirth,For ever unsleeping— The kings of the earthHe sees, and his anger is pregnant, his curses are fruitful of birth.
Not crowned Aphrodite Gold-girdled, is ours,But a goddess more mighty Who burns and devoursAll love and is girt with a serpent—with thorns, and sick nightshade for flowers.
No pale Dionysus, No madness divine,Can lure or entice us With fury of wineFrom the tendrils of bitter vine garlands, which poison our hearts as they twine.
But a god of dull madness, A god of the dead,Who never from sadness Of Hades was ledBy Zeus, but treads where mere shadows have trod and for ever shall tread.
All Pallas could tell us We scorn in our hearts,But strong to impel us With clamorous dartsOf hatred arises a goddess who numbers each tear as it starts.
Not Artemis claims us— No servants of PanAre we, but one names us Whose fingers can spanThe weapons of wrath and destruction—the terrible godhead of Man.
Let them shrink from our gods, Let them tremble, for weShall shatter their rods And strike till the sea,Till the earth, by their anguish made eager, proclaim us triumphant and free.
They have urged us like cattle, Like sheep have they slain,But hate in the chattel May guide as a brain—Once quickened, the hand of the lifeless not soon is made lifeless again.
The sword once arisen Not soon to its sheathShall return, for its prison It scorns when the griefOf those it transfixes and tortures have brought to its hunger relief.
They fear us—they hate us These lords, and they keepStern watch to abate us— (The river is deep,The current is strong in its fury, the cliffs that surround it are steep).
Though we serve them in battle We laugh, for we hearIn our foeman's death rattle The sound of their fear,The cries of their women and children, the shriek of their doom that is near.
Ye gods, without pity— Our gods are more strong—Ye kings of the city, Who goad us with wrong—With wrong and with wild desperation, demand of your spirits, How long!