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Report on Experience

by Edmund Blunden

 

I have been young, and now am not too old ;
And I have seen the righteous forsaken,
His health, his honour and his quality taken.
     This is not what we were formerly told.
 
I have seen a green county, useful to the race,
Knocked silly with guns and mines, its villages vanished,
Even the last rat and last kestrel banished―
     God bless us all, this was peculiar grace.
 
I knew Seraphina ; Nature gave her hue,
Glance, sympathy, note, like one from Eden.
I saw her smile warp, heard her lyric deaden ;
     She turned to harlotry ;― this I took to be new.
 
Say what you will, our God sees how then run.
These disillusions are his curious proving
That he loves humanity and will go on loving ;
     Over there are faith, life, virtue in the sun.