The cards in the candle-lit barn, and the scraping concert,

The masculine jokes; to-day the

Fumbled and unsatisfactory embrace before hurting.

The stars are dead. The animals will not look.

We are left alone with our day, and the time is short, and

History to the defeated

May say alas but cannot help or pardon.

—excerpt from Spain 1937 by W.H. Auden.

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