OTHERS ARE MORE IMPORTANT

Let me wholly put my mind

To Caracalla’s frightened Rome,

To Albigensians burning

Pimple, hair and toe,

To sick and starving, maimed and blind.

Humane lament will tell

My own, perhaps, to blush,

For though I sulk and bite my lip,

My grief lies not on earth’s

Noteworthy parallel.

[When the first version of this poem was printed in 1960, the fifth line read: “To Europe rationing a rind,” proof that it was written close, or fairly close, to the end of World War II. In 1981, I substituted “Asia” for “Europe”. But in the 21st century even “Asia” — fortunately — no longer fits (by and large), hence the line has been generalized. The reader must decide whether the inversion “lies not” in the penultimate line is a weak archaism or, for once, an admissible move.]