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Sierran Aftermath
(To the members of the International Brigade killed at Jarama,
February 1937.)
Love that flowered into death
Was theirs and in them here
Questioning by their offering
Our unofficial infantry
Lies unsung, unhonored, and four hundred.
Always when it seemed there must be some assistance,
Always when it seemed even the bully must see, must admit,
Always when it seemed the point was proved
That might have stirred the deaf to act the dumb to answer
There came a splitting thudding from the sky...
Always on the Guadarrama love
That flowered into death sings
Riego, Riego, laughing on those slopes,
And on those startling peaks
Leaves something ineffaceable:
Moving; as to me the names
Like water or like moonlight
Evade the memory and are silent.
As to me the eyes, the faces
Are beyond and in the morning small.