“Some old man memory jumps to a child
— Spark from the days of energy.
And the child hoards it like a bitter toy.”

—  Stephen Spender

"Fall of a City"
Selected Poems (1941)
Context: All the lessons learned, unlearned;
The young, who learned to read, now blind
Their eyes with an archaic film;
The peasant relapses to a stumbling tune
Following the donkey`s bray;
These only remember to forget. But somewhere some word presses
On the high door of a skull and in some corner
Of an irrefrangible eye
Some old man memory jumps to a child
— Spark from the days of energy.
And the child hoards it like a bitter toy.

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Stephen Spender photo
Stephen Spender 76
English poet and man of letters 1909–1995

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