Edwin Muir: The Refugees...

A poem by the great Scottish poet, Edwin Muir (1887-1959).

This poem needs to be remembered. It was unfinished, like the crisis.

The refugees born for a land unknown
We have dismissed their wrongs, now dull and old,
And little judgment days lost in the dark.

“I have fled through land and sea, blank land and sea,
Because my house is besieged by murderers
And I was wrecked in the ocean, crushed and swept,
Spilling salt angry tears on the salt waves,
My life waste water drawn down through a hole,
Yet lived. And now with alien eyes I see
The flowering trees on the unreal hills,
And in an English garden all afternoon
I watch the bees among the lavender.
Bees are at home, and think they have their place,
And I outside
Footsteps on the stairs, two heavy, two light,
The door opens. Since then I remember nothing,
But this room in a place where no doors open.
I think the world died many years ago".


Edwin Muir