Covenent
Covenent - meaning Summary
Pride, Betrayal, and Atonement
The poem describes a community’s moral collapse after assuming immunity from evil. Trusting deceitful leaders, they succumb to gradual corruption—lies lead to theft and violence—until they recognize the need for purification. Facing divine judgment, they appeal for mercy while preparing to atone and reclaim a hard-won ancestral right to right wrongs when law and its keepers fail. It ends with a pledge to seek strength and meet God unashamed.
Read Complete AnalysesWe thought we ranked above the chance of ill. Others might fall, not we, for we were wise-- Merchants in freedom. So, of our free-will We let our servants drug our strength with lies. The pleasure and the poison had its way On us as on the meanest, till we learned That he who lies will steal, who steals will slay. Neither God's judgment nor man's heart was turned. Yet there remains His Mercy--to be sought Through wrath and peril till we cleanse the wrong By that last right which our forefathers claimed When their Law failed them and its stewards were bought. This is our cause. God help us, and make strong Our will to meet Him later, unashamed!
1914
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