Hunger
I come among the peoples like a shadow.
I sit down by each man's side.
None sees me, but they look on one another,
And know that I am there.
My silence is like the silence of the tide That buries the playground of children;
Like the deepening of frost in the slow night,
When birds are dead in the morning.
Armies trample, invade, destroy,
With guns roaring from earth and air.
I am more terrible than armies,
I am more feared than the cannon.
Kings and chancellors give commands;
I give no command to any;
But I am listened to more than kings And more than passionate orators.
I unswear words, and undo deeds.
Naked things know me.
I am first and last to be felt of the living.
I am
This poem is written - with Hunger as the poet
Robert Laurence Binyon
Other author posts
The Children Dancing
Away, sad thoughts, and teasing Perplexities, away Let other blood go freezing, We will be wise and gay For here is all heart-easing,
The Winds Of All The World
The winds of all the world bring agonies, Day by day, hour by hour, into our ears; Not only desolation, blood, and tears, But cloud on cloud of suffocating lies
The Burning Of The Leaves
I Now is the time for the burning of the leaves They go to the fire; the nostril pricks with smoke Wandering slowly into a weeping mist Brittle and blotched, ragged and rotten sheaves A flame seizes the smouldering ruin and bites On...
The Tamarisk Hedge
I know that there are slumbrous woods beyond On islands of white marges, where the tide Floods upward, blue as a kingfisher's wing, And sails, like wishes of a reverie, Shine to the wind that fills them, far inland I know that there...