The guns spell money's ultimate reason <br />In letters of lead on the spring hillside. <br />But the boy lying dead under the olive trees <br />Was too young and too silly <br />To have been notable to their important eye. <br />He was a better target for a kiss. <br /> <br />When he lived, tall factory hooters never summoned him. <br />Nor did restaurant plate-glass doors revolve to wave him in. <br />His name never appeared in the papers. <br />The world maintained its traditional wall <br />Round the dead with their gold sunk deep as a well, <br />Whilst his life, intangible as a Stock Exchange rumour, drifted outside. <br /> <br />O too lightly he threw down his cap <br />One day when the breeze threw petals from the trees. <br />The unflowering wall sprouted with guns, <br />Machine-gun anger quickly scythed the grasses; <br />Flags and leaves fell from hands and branches; <br />The tweed cap rotted in the nettles. <br /> <br />Consider his life which was valueless <br />In terms of employment, hotel ledgers, news files. <br />Consider. One bullet in ten thousand kills a man. <br />Ask. Was so much expenditure justified <br />On the death of one so young and so silly <br />Lying under the olive tree, O world, O death?<br /><br />Stephen Spender<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/ultima-ratio-regum/
