War and Love/Disdain

by Richard Aldington

 

DISDAIN

Have the gods then left us in our needLike base and common men?Were even the sweet grey eyesOf Artemis a lie,The speech of Hermes but a trick,The glory of Apollonian hair deceit?

Desolate we move across a desolate land,The high gates closed,No answer to our prayer;Naught left save our integrity,No murmur against FateSave that we are juster than the unjust gods,More pitiful than they.

April, 1917