Dishonest Dreams

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.

—C. Day-Lewis, "Where Are the War Poets?" (1943)

What might I add to this at best

—for ’43, that spiteful year,

At least its logic yet possessed,

To guard against unwilling fear?

Dissimulating whence from hence

In crucifying common sense,

We take and cannot spare a fence:

Our dreaming knows no recompense.

Wednesday, April 9, 2025