I want to read from The Carrier of Ladders.
First, the poem that's in the Oracle book
for which the publication party was last weekend, it's a poem
called Edward.
And the immediate war that it refers to
is, of course, the First World War.
But it stands with a whole series of such things
behind it.
And it's addressed to someone who is, in some sense,
a survivor.
Edward, shall we leave tomorrow for Verdun again?
Shall we set out for the great days and never be the same?
Never.
Time is what is left.
Shall we start this time in the spring,
and they lead your cows out next week to sell at the fair,
and the brambles learn to scribble over the first field?
Edward, shall we have gone when the leaves come out
but before the heat slows the grand marches?
Days like those, the heights and the dying at thy right hand
sound the long horn.
And here, the bright handles will fog over.
Things will break and stay broken in the keeping of women.
The sheep get lost.
The bonds burn unconsoled in the darkness.
Edward, what would you have given not to go?
Sitting last night in by the fire again.
But shall we be the same?
Tomorrow night, shall we not have
gone leaving the faces and nightingales?
As you know, we will live.
And what never comes back will be you and me.
[APPLAUSE]