Conscientious Objector

This is, for me, an unnervingly well-written and poignant piece. It is one of the very few pieces of poetry my lizard brain does not recoil in horror from, and for whatever reason it has been repeating in my head a great deal recently. I wanted to share it with you.

Conscientious Objector

written by Edna St. Vincent Millay in 1934

I shall die, but that is all that I shall do for Death.

I hear him leading his horse out of the stall; I hear the clatter on the barn floor.

He is in haste; he has business in Cuba, business in the Balkans, many calls to make this morning. 

But I will not hold the bridle while he clinches the girth.

And he may mount himself: I will not give him a leg up.

Though he may flick me on the shoulders with his whip, I will not tell him which way the fox ran.

With his hoof on my breast, I will not tell him where the black boy hides in the swamp.

I shall die, but that is all that I shall do for Death; I am not on his pay-roll.

I will not tell him the whereabouts of my friends nor my enemies either.

Though he promise me much, I will not map him the route to any man's door.

Am I a spy in the land of the living, that I should deliver men to Death?

Brother, the password and the plans of our city are safe with me; never through me 

Shall you be overcome.

I've written a couple things that have gone straight in the bin, as they were either no longer relevant or I couldn't stomach them even after three drafts. The conscience clause doesn't rile me in quite the same way, as I understand a little better the disgusting leeway my countrymen afford those who claim religious moral superiority. There's no need to write on the very real horror and totalitarian cruelty inflicted by one group of Muslims in Iraq against all other groups, as no one remains unaware. So I plug on, as do you, and a century old poem of death sings me to sleep.