Reading in Wartime

Boswell by my bed,

Tolstoy on my table;

Thought the world has bled For four and a half years,

And wives' and mothers' tears Collected would be able To water a little field Untouched by anger and blood,

A penitential yield Somewhere in the world;

Though in each latitude Armies like forest fall,

The iniquitous and the good Head over heels hurled,

And confusion over all:

Boswell's turbulent friend And his deafening verbal strife,

Ivan Ilych's death Tell me more about life,

The meaning and the end Of our familiar breath,

Both being personal,

Than all the carnage can,

Retrieve the shape of man,

Lost and anonymous,

Tell me wherever I look That not one soul can die Of this or any clan Who is not one of us And has a personal tie Perhaps to someone now Searching an ancient book,

Folk-tale or country song In many and many a tongue,

To find the original face,

The individual soul,

The eye, the lip, the brow For ever gone from their place,

And gather an image whole.