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Now I want to read one--

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I wrote about 20 anti-war
poems in World War II.

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That was written-- this
poem we have just heard

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was written in 1944.

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I've written a few for this war.

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And I don't have time tonight
to go into my theories

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about war or war poetry.

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It's a fascinating subject.

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There have been pro
and anti-war poems

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from the dawn of
mankind practically.

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And I am against
war and against--

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I'm on that side.

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But I have to admit that there
are many fine pro-war poems

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back in the--

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a little poem by Simonides
for instance in ancient Greece

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translated by my classmate
Richmond Lattimore.

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In about 12 lines holds
that the highest thing that

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can happen to a
young man of 18 is

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to die fighting for his
country whether right or wrong.

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Well all the young men I know
today don't feel that way.

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And this war is not for me.

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And I must keep
off this subject.

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However I really thought
a couple of years ago,

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it struck me in the simplest
but the profoundest way

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that the reason why our
boys are dying in Vietnam

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is so our young people can
make love back here at home.

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So I wanted to draw a picture
of ideal love under a pine tree.

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And here it is.

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"The Bower."

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"Under dense fir boughs, on
a carpet of pine needles,

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in golden summer
afternoon, he came

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as to a cathedral for
the laying on of hands.

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She came like the
heart of summer

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beyond the reach of words
to exist in naked splendor

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where pain is forgotten
to silent pleasure.

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These two realists of
life without a word to say

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entered into the communion
of old centuries,

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far places, zephyrs
pleasing the sanctum.

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It was a redemption as
ancient as lovers ever

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tried to imagine.

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It was what
battlefields are for,

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to disclaim the evidence of
the shooter and the shot.

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They never thought
of the suffering

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of the gross battlefield
under the serene pines

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on a bed of pine needles.

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They never thought of wounds.

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They never thought
of useless death,

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of boys killed in Vietnam,
of the bloody passion of man

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to maim, to make blind, the
blood trench of mankind.

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They were in Eden.

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Two enacting the high dream
of purity beyond the evidence.

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Their flesh effulgent
as in Rubens, Velasquez.

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Zephyrs playing
among the boughs,

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nimble in the lightsome air.

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Jets of purest silence,
time suspended there.

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Looking on the timeless scene.

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Lovers in their trance.

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Death the deeper trance.

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Dream of bliss.

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Dream of death.

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The strength of day wanes.

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The blood of life pours out."

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