So I raged and so I pleaded,
As I waited on this devil,
Making boots, boots.
Till the best part of me died,
For was dragged out by the roots;
And the hum no more I heeded,
Nay I heard it not at all.
And the call
Of the sweet and pleasant country, and
the stillness of the earth
I forgot,
And my lot
Ceased to hate, or deem tyrant evil,
Or his overthrow to plan.
So that now, no more a man,
But his unrebellious slave
In this Polyphemus cave
Unresisting I attend
To the end.
G. D. H. COLE
In Factory Dirge from The Crooked World
(Victor Gollancz Ltd. 1933)