27 MARCH 1936, Page 14

Defeat

IT was not thus we fought, nor in this city, With the ear-lines and the houses twisted, And the entrails of the factory smouldering : It was not here.

These bodies are not ours, lying, defeated, Strangled by the unknown air, the drifting fumes, These tortured lips and Sowers are not us, Our words were light.

These conquerors are not ours, nor these our children, Building new barricades in stranger towns, Our city dies in us, and in our eyes, And dies defeated.

MICHAEL Roarmrs. •