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Poems

May 2003

For the war dead

by Sarah Ruden

Rapidly, darkly, all around,
The groves and fields are falling down.

We see it from the yard today:
The land, that’s endless, ebbs away.

We did not dream this could be done.
Relentlessly we loved our son.

Take him along—we look to You.
What can be finished that You do?

It lies on stone—this woods, this hill.
It is as lasting as Your will.

But neither can this be undone:
The scar, our passion for our son.


Sarah Rudens translation of The Aeneid was published by Yale University Press earlier this year
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This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 21 May 2003, on page 37
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