Cranking up the pretentiousness

There has been too much wargaming here recently so it's time for some pseudery. I was reading this week's Polemarch and felt moved to add a comment referencing Herbert Read. Now at that point one could either reach for the Foster's paddle of rebuke or one could press on regardless.

Having no shame I opt for some poetry by Read, an anarchist who accepted a knighthood and was therefore just the type of inconsistent chap to inspire your bloggist. An art critic - he championed Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth - he served in the First War and is of course best known as a war poet. However, you're not interested in that; you want some politics.

A Song for the Spanish Anarchists

The golden lemon is not made
but grows on a green tree:
A strong man and his crystal eyes
is a man born free.

The oxen pass under the yoke
and the blind are led at will:
But a man born free has a path of his own
and a house on the hill

And man are men who till the land
and women are women who weave:
Fifty men own the lemon grove
and no man is a slave.

- Sir Herbert Read