Where Are The War Poets?

Published in 1943 in Word Over All, felt by some to be Day-Lewis’s best collection, this brief poem reflects his mixed feelings about the Second World War, a conflict he had hoped would never happen. It continues to echo down the ages in subsequent conflicts.

They who in folly or mere greed
Enslaved religion, markets, laws,
Borrow our language now and bid
Us to speak up in freedom’s cause.

It is the logic of our times,
No subject for immortal verse –
That we who lived by honest dreams
Defend the bad against the worse.