WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.009 align:middle line:90% 00:00:02.009 --> 00:00:06.090 align:middle line:84% Then I said-- thought next I'd read some poems 00:00:06.090 --> 00:00:08.370 align:middle line:90% about the Spanish Civil War. 00:00:08.370 --> 00:00:14.970 align:middle line:84% The Spanish Civil War took place in 1937 or so. 00:00:14.970 --> 00:00:18.060 align:middle line:90% It was 1937 until 1939. 00:00:18.060 --> 00:00:23.760 align:middle line:84% And this is the time of fascism and Hitler and so on. 00:00:23.760 --> 00:00:27.840 align:middle line:84% And the Spanish Civil War became very much a dramatization 00:00:27.840 --> 00:00:34.020 align:middle line:84% of the struggle between fascism and Nazism and anti-fascism, 00:00:34.020 --> 00:00:43.610 align:middle line:84% which went to communism at that time because both sides-- 00:00:43.610 --> 00:00:47.100 align:middle line:84% on one side, the Spanish and the Italians. 00:00:47.100 --> 00:00:50.430 align:middle line:84% Let's just say on Franco side, the Spanish and the Italians. 00:00:50.430 --> 00:00:56.610 align:middle line:84% And on the Republican side, the Russians. 00:00:56.610 --> 00:01:00.720 align:middle line:84% And also a whole lot of international people 00:01:00.720 --> 00:01:03.990 align:middle line:84% who sympathized with the Republicans 00:01:03.990 --> 00:01:09.000 align:middle line:84% of the international brigade supported the Republicans. 00:01:09.000 --> 00:01:09.847 align:middle line:90% I went to Spain. 00:01:09.847 --> 00:01:11.430 align:middle line:84% I wasn't in the international brigade, 00:01:11.430 --> 00:01:16.630 align:middle line:84% but I went to Spain several times during that period. 00:01:16.630 --> 00:01:20.970 align:middle line:84% And so I got a feeling of the Spanish Civil War-- 00:01:20.970 --> 00:01:22.800 align:middle line:84% had feelings about the Spanish Civil War 00:01:22.800 --> 00:01:25.620 align:middle line:90% and also about wars in general. 00:01:25.620 --> 00:01:28.170 align:middle line:84% And this is a poem called "Two Armies". 00:01:28.170 --> 00:01:31.290 align:middle line:90% 00:01:31.290 --> 00:01:34.600 align:middle line:84% I don't think it needs much explanation. 00:01:34.600 --> 00:01:36.900 align:middle line:84% But the point is that the two armies are out 00:01:36.900 --> 00:01:41.880 align:middle line:84% on a plain and there's very little distance, perhaps about 00:01:41.880 --> 00:01:46.320 align:middle line:84% 100 or 200 yards, between the front lines of the two armies. 00:01:46.320 --> 00:01:50.710 align:middle line:84% And it's the middle of the winter and very cold. 00:01:50.710 --> 00:01:54.030 align:middle line:84% Deep in the winter plain, two armies 00:01:54.030 --> 00:01:57.990 align:middle line:84% dig their machinery to destroy each other. 00:01:57.990 --> 00:02:00.780 align:middle line:90% Men freeze and hunger. 00:02:00.780 --> 00:02:03.870 align:middle line:84% No one is given leave on either side, 00:02:03.870 --> 00:02:06.240 align:middle line:90% except the dead and wounded. 00:02:06.240 --> 00:02:12.330 align:middle line:84% These have their leave while new battalions wait on time at last 00:02:12.330 --> 00:02:15.690 align:middle line:90% to bring them violent peace. 00:02:15.690 --> 00:02:19.230 align:middle line:84% All have become so nervous and so cold 00:02:19.230 --> 00:02:22.890 align:middle line:84% that each man hates the cause and distant words that 00:02:22.890 --> 00:02:27.180 align:middle line:84% brought him here more terribly than bullets. 00:02:27.180 --> 00:02:30.780 align:middle line:84% Once a boy hummed a popular marching song. 00:02:30.780 --> 00:02:34.800 align:middle line:84% Once a novice hand flapped their salute. 00:02:34.800 --> 00:02:37.890 align:middle line:84% The voice was choked, the lifted hand 00:02:37.890 --> 00:02:43.920 align:middle line:84% fell, shot through the wrist by those of his own side. 00:02:43.920 --> 00:02:47.160 align:middle line:84% From their numb harvest, all would 00:02:47.160 --> 00:02:51.450 align:middle line:84% flee except for discipline drilled once 00:02:51.450 --> 00:02:54.240 align:middle line:84% in an iron school, which holds them 00:02:54.240 --> 00:02:56.820 align:middle line:90% at the point of a revolver. 00:02:56.820 --> 00:03:00.120 align:middle line:84% Yet when they sleep, the images of home 00:03:00.120 --> 00:03:03.660 align:middle line:84% ride wishing horses of escape which 00:03:03.660 --> 00:03:08.880 align:middle line:84% herd the plain in a mess unspoken poem. 00:03:08.880 --> 00:03:11.040 align:middle line:90% Finally, they cease to hate. 00:03:11.040 --> 00:03:13.500 align:middle line:84% For although hate bursts from the air 00:03:13.500 --> 00:03:17.730 align:middle line:84% and whips the earth with hail or shoots it up in fountains 00:03:17.730 --> 00:03:21.180 align:middle line:84% to marvel at, and although hundreds fall, 00:03:21.180 --> 00:03:25.200 align:middle line:84% who can connect to the inexhaustible anger of the guns 00:03:25.200 --> 00:03:30.660 align:middle line:84% with the dumb patience of these tormented animals? 00:03:30.660 --> 00:03:35.520 align:middle line:84% Clean silence drops at night when a little walk divides 00:03:35.520 --> 00:03:38.280 align:middle line:84% the sleeping armies, each huddled 00:03:38.280 --> 00:03:42.210 align:middle line:90% in linen woven by remote hands. 00:03:42.210 --> 00:03:46.200 align:middle line:84% When the machines are stilled, a common suffering 00:03:46.200 --> 00:03:51.150 align:middle line:84% whitens the air with breath and makes both one 00:03:51.150 --> 00:03:56.040 align:middle line:84% as though these enemies slept in each other's arms. 00:03:56.040 --> 00:04:01.290 align:middle line:84% Only the lucid friend to aerial raiders, the brilliant pilot 00:04:01.290 --> 00:04:04.650 align:middle line:84% moon stares down upon this plain. 00:04:04.650 --> 00:04:08.670 align:middle line:84% She makes a shining bone cut by the shadows 00:04:08.670 --> 00:04:11.430 align:middle line:90% of many thousand bones. 00:04:11.430 --> 00:04:16.500 align:middle line:84% Where amber clouds scatter on no-man's-land, she regards 00:04:16.500 --> 00:04:22.140 align:middle line:84% death and time throw up the furious words and minerals 00:04:22.140 --> 00:04:24.080 align:middle line:90% which destroy. 00:04:24.080 --> 00:04:25.000 align:middle line:90%