I shall die, but
that is all that I shall do for Death.
I hear him leading his horse out of the stall;
I hear the clatter on the barn-floor.
He is in haste; he has business in Cuba,
business in the Balkans, many calls to make this morning.
But I will not hold the bridle
while he clinches the girth.
And he may mount by himself:
I will not give him a leg up.
Though he flick my shoulders with his whip,
I will not tell him which way the fox ran.
With his hoof on my breast, I will not tell him where
the black boy hides in the swamp.
I shall die, but that is all that I shall do for Death;
I am not on his pay-roll.
I will not tell him the whereabout of my friends
nor of my enemies either.
Though he promise me much,
I will not map him the route to any man’s door.
Am I a spy in the land of the living,
that I should deliver men to Death?
Brother, the password and the plans of our city
are safe with me; never through me Shall you be overcome.
Christopher Hitchens quotes from this poem here in a recent talk with Salman Rushdie.
It may give you another way of appreciating it.
You’ll have to do a search in youtube to see it as I don’t think I can post a link here, sorry.
I think this poem is just as relevant today as when it was written…times and places may change…mankind stays the same….’Conscientious Objector’ is simply a great poem !
Just had parts of this recited at a Quaker Meeting. Very powerful. If anyone who reads it has quaker friends, copy it to them!
vincent’s mention of the balkans may be a reference to the first world war; as if began in 1914 in sarajevo, bosnia with the assassination of the austro-hungarian prince, ferninand. i wonder then: could the reference to cuba be intended as the spanish-american war of 1898? american participation in that misadventure was primarily in cuba. both wars were waged immediately prior to the creation of this poem, which i believe was written in the 1930s. the next american war was, of course, world war two.
i don’t believe that the poem is primarily about war however. a poet will always object to choas and venality, and it seems to me that this is vincent’s critique of the world-wide malaise that was beginning to envelope the entire world. it is the pre-condition, the oncoming horror that she is recoiling from here. and she bravely asserts that she wants no part of the duplicity that will lead to death.
Why does she choose to mention Cuba and the Balkans our of all places?