"Who live under the shadow of a war,
What can I do that matters?
My pen stops, and my laughter, dancing, stop,
Or ride to a gap.

How often, on the powerful crest of pride,
I am shot with thought
That halts the untamed horses of the blood,
The grip on good;

That moving, whimpering, and mating, bear
Tunes to deaf ears:
Stuffed with the realer passions of the earth
Beneath this hearth."
{Stephen Spender, Poems, 1933}