Classic Poem

From half across the world
These yellowish, strangely printed papers come,
Pages too tightly furled,
With tales I know of slaughter and pogrom—
I slip into my chair, tilt higher
A low light at my elbow. But the tea
Is still too hot to drink, and so I skim
Headings that wail of exile, murder, fire,
Of laden backs slow passing to the sea,
Bent figures hurt in fiber, mind, and limb.

I think I do not see what things I read,
Or else I could not read and slowly sip
Comforting tea. This hunger and this need
Touch me with horror—and yet feebly slip
Into a cache,
An area off-focus, not quite true.
I cannot think that I
Would shake lean, starving fingers from my dress,
And pass old women crouching in the street,
Or shapeless dead—pass calmly by
And stare quite through
Their ancient woe and tears and blind distress,
To come indoors to eat!
And yet I do this thing,
Suffer with those who suffer—just so much—
And quite avoid the rude attack and clutch
Of panic—presence of the unknown dark.
I think I have a gift for locking in
Unpleasant agony and facts too stark,
With the old and shadowy sin
Of old dead lands half shadowy and mad,
That hardly matter now.
And since I would prefer earth to be glad,
I know well how
To group disturbing tales of blood and wrong
With Moloch, Blue-beard's wives, and such as these,
To keep far from me—bread-lines three blocks long,
And old men slain in cellars on their knees.