'The submarine was quite within its rights in sinking the cargo of the Armenian,—1,422 mules valued at $191,400.' <br /> <br /> <br />No matter; we are only mules <br />And slow to understand <br />We drown according to the rules <br />Of war, we contraband <br />War reckons us as shot and shell, <br />As so much metal lost. <br />And mourns the dollars gone to swell <br />The monstrous bill of cost. <br />Would that we had been wrought of steel <br />And not of quivering flesh! <br />Of iron, not of nerves that feel, <br />And maddened limbs that thresh <br />The sucking seas in stubborn strife <br />For that dim right of ours <br />To what no factory fashions, life, <br />No Edison endowers. <br />Our last wild screams are choked; you know <br />It does not matter, for <br />We're only mules that suffered so, <br />And contraband of war.<br /><br />Katharine Lee Bates<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/only-mules/
