In the village churchyard there grows an old yew, Every spring it blossoms anew:
Old passports can't do that, my dear, old passports can't do
that.
The consul banged the table and said, "If you've got no passport you're officially dead": But we are still alive, my dear, but we are still alive.
Went to a committee; they offered me a chair; Asked me politely to return next year:
But where shall we go to-day, my dear, but where shall we go
to-day?
Came to a public meeting; the speaker got up and said; "If we let them in, they will steal our daily bread": He was talking of you and me, my dear, he was talking of you
and me.
Thought I heard the thunder rumbling in the sky; It was Hitler over Europe, saying, "They must die": O we were in his mind, my dear, 0 we were in his mind.
Saw a poodle in a jacket fastened with a pin,
Saw a door opened and a cat let in:
But they weren't German Jews, my dear, but they weren't
German Jews.
Went down the harbour and stood upon the quay, Saw the fish swimming as if they were free: Only ten feet away, my dear, only ten feet away.
Walked through a wood, saw the birds in the trees;
They had no politicians and sang at their ease:
They weren't the human race, my dear, they weren't the
human race.
Dreamed I saw a building with a thousand floors,
A thousand windows and a thousand doors:
Not one of them was ours, my dear, not one of them was ours.
Stood on a great plain in the falling snow; Ten thousand soldiers marched to and fro: Looking for you and me, my dear, looking for you and me.
March 19 39
The Unknown Citizen
To /S/07/M/378 This Marble Monument is Erected by the State
He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be One against whom there was no official complaint, And all the reports on his conduct agree That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word,
he was a saint, For in everything he did he served the Greater Community. Except for the War till the day he retired He worked in a factory and never got fired, But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc. Yet he wasn't a scab or odd in his views, For his Union reports that he paid his dues, (Our report on his Union shows it was sound) And our Social Psychology workers found That he was popular with his mates and liked a drink. The Press are convinced that he bought a paper every day And that his reactions to advertisements were normal in
every way.
Policies taken out in his name prove that he was fully insured, And his Health-card shows he was once in hospital but
left it cured.
Both Producers Research and High-Grade Living declare He was fully sensible to the advantages of the Installment Plan And had everything necessary to the Modern Man, A gramophone, a radio, a car and a frigidaire. Our researchers into Public Opinion are content That he held the proper opinions for the time of year; When there was peace, he was for peace; when there
was war, he went. He was married and added five children to the population, Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of
his generation,
And our teachers report that he never interfered with
their education. Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd: Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.
March 1939
47
September 1, 1939
I sit in one of the dives On Fifty-Second Street Uncertain and afraid As the clever hopes expire Of a low dishonest decade: Waves of anger and fear Circulate over the bright And darkened lands of the earth, Obsessing our private lives; The unmentionable odour of death Offends the September night.
Accurate scholarship can Unearth the whole offence From Luther until now That has driven a culture mad, Find what occurred at Linz, What huge imago made A psychopathic god: I and the public know What all schoolchildren learn, Those to whom evil is done Do evil in return.
Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave; -
Analysed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.
Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective Man,
Each language pours its vain
Competitive excuse :
But who can live for long
In an euphoric dream;
Out of the mirror they stare,
Imperialism's face
And the international wrong.
Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.
The windiest militant trash Important Persons shout Is not so crude as our wish: What mad Nijinsky wrote About Diaghilev Is true of the normal heart; For the error bred in the bone Of each woman and each man Craves what it cannot have, Not universal love But to be loved alone.
From the conservative dark Into the ethical life The dense commuters come, Repeating their morning vow, "I will be true to the wife, I'll concentrate more on my work," And helpless governors wake To resume their compulsory game: Who can release them now, Who can reach the deaf, Who can speak for the dumb?
All I have is a voice To undo the folded lie, The romantic lie in the brain Of the sensual man-in-the-street And the lie of Authority Whose buildings grope the sky: There is no such thing as the State And no one exists alone; Hunger allows no choice To the citizen or the police; We must love one another or die.
Defenceless under the night Our world in stupor lies; Yet, dotted everywhere, Ironic points of light Flash out wherever the Just Exchange their messages: May I, composed like them Of Eros and of dust, Beleaguered by the same Negation and despair, Show an affirming flame.
September 1939
48
Law, say the gardeners, is the sun, Law is the one All gardeners obey To-morrow, yesterday, to-day.
Law is the wisdom of the old The impotent grandfathers shrilly scold; The grandchildren put out a treble tongue, Law is the senses of the young.
Law, says the priest with a priestly look, Expounding to an unpriestly people, Law is the words in my priestly book, Law is my pulpit and my steeple.
Law, says the judge as he looks down his nose, Speaking clearly and most severely, Law is as I've told you before,
■W ?
Law is as you know I suppose, Law is but let me explain it once more, Law is The Law.
Yet law-abiding scholars write: Law is neither wrong nor right, Law is only crimes
Punished by places and by times, j
Law is the clothes men wear Anytime, anywhere,
Law is Good-morning and Good-night. j
Others say, Law is our Fate; Others say, Law is our State; Others say, others say Law is no more Law has gone away.
And always the loud angry crowd Very angry and very loud Law is We,
And always the soft idiot softly Me.
If we, dear, know we know no more
Than they about the law,
If I no more than you
Know what we should and should not do
Except that all agree
Gladly or miserably
That the law is
And that all know this,
If therefore thinking it absurd
To identify Law with some other word,