His name never appeared in the papers. The world maintained its traditional wall Round the dead with their gold sunk deep as a well, Whilst his life,… - Stephen Spender

Here where I lie is the hot pit Crowding on the mind with coal And the will turned against it Only drills new seams of darkness Through the dark-surrounding whole. Our vivid suns of happiness Withered from summer, drop their flowers; Hands of the longed, withheld tomorrow Fold on the hands of yesterday In double sorrow.

All have become so nervous and so cold That each man hates the cause and distant words Which brought him here, more terribly than bullets.

A poet can only write about what is true to his own experience, not about what he would like to be true to his experience. Poetry does not state truth, it states the conditions within which something felt is true. Even while he is writing about the little portion of reality which is part of his experience, the poet may be conscious of a different reality outside. His problem is to relate the small truth to the sense of a wider, perhaps theoretically known, truth outside his experience.