“A ragged urchin, aimless and alone,
Loitered about that vacancy; a bird
Flew up to safety from his well-aimed stone:
That girls are raped, that two boys knife a third,
Were axioms to him, who’d never heard
Of any world where promises were kept
Or one could weep because another wept.”
--W.H. Auden, “The Shield of Achilles,” 1952
[Image: Marcus Bleasdale]
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