Fall of a city - Stephen Spender

Fall of a city

All the posters on the walls 
All the leaflets in the streets 
Are mutilated, destroyed or run in rain, 
Their words blotted out with tears, 
Skins peeling from their bodies 
In the victorious hurricane. 

All the names of heroes in the hall 
Where the feet thundered and the bronze throats roared, 
Fox and Lorca claimed as history on the walls, 
Are now angrily deleted 
Or to dust surrender their dust, 
From golden praise excluded. 

All the badges and salutes 
Torn from lapels and hands 
Are thrown away with human sacks they wore 
Or in the deepest bed of mind 
They are washed over with a smile 
Which launches the victors when they win. 

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. 

Uno de los poemas citados en la exposición del Centro de Arte Reina Sofía "Arte y poder en la posguerra española"