W.H. Auden : "Spain"

Between January to March, 1937, Auden spent time in Republican Spain during the Spanish Civil War; the experience had a profound effect on the poet.

Spain

Yesterday all the past. The language of size
Spreading to China along the trade-routes; the diffusion
Of the counting-frame and the cromlech;
Yesterday the shadow-reckoning in the sunny climates.

Yesterday the assessment of insurance by cards,
The divination of water; yesterday the invention
Of cartwheels and clocks, the taming …