Alun Lewis

“He was a poet of great power, who described the loneliness of military life in the early Forties with unique eloquence and accuracy; he wrote, too, exciting and original love poetry.”

“It is only when death releases the true poet from the embarrassing condition of being at once immortal and alive in the flesh that the people are prepared to honour him; and his spirit as it passes is saluted by a spontaneous display of public emotion. This explains the heavy black headlines in the Press of March 1944: ALUN LEWIS THE POET IS DEAD. Search the back-files and you will find no preparatory announcement: ALUN LEWIS WRITES GREAT POETRY.”

“The dwarf barefooted, chantingBehind the oxen by the lake,Stepping lightly and lazily among the thorntreesDusky and dazed with sunlight, half awake;{{pb}}The women breaking stones upon the highway,Walking erect with burdens on their heads,One body growing in another body,Creation touching verminous straw beds.{{pb}}Across scorched hills and trampled cropsThe soldiers straggle by.History staggers in their wake.The peasants watch them die.”

“Who is it climbs the summit of the road?Only the beggar bumming his dark load.Who was it cried to see the falling star?Only the landless soldier lost in war.And did a thousand years go by in vain?And does another thousand start again?”

“All this slowness, all this hardness,The nearness that is waiting in my bed,The gradual self-effacement of the dead.”

“So we must say Goodbye, my darling,And go, as lovers go, for ever;Tonight remains, to pack and fix on labelsAnd make an end of lying down together.”

“I am more and more engrossed with the single poetic theme of Life and Death, for there doesn't seem to be any question more directly relevant than this one of what survives of all the beloved.”

“And we talked of girls, and dropping bombs on Rome,And thought of the quiet dead and the loud celebritiesExhorting us to slaughter.”