
August 1968
The Ogre does what ogres can,
Deeds quite impossible for Man,
But one prize is beyond his reach,
The Ogre cannot master Speech:
About a subjugated plain,
Among its desperate and slain,
The Ogre stalks with hands on hips,
While drivel gushes from his lips.
W H Auden
The poem responds to the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia on August 20, 1968. The invasion by 500,000 Warsaw Pact troops toppled the reformist regime of Alexander Dubcek, which had ended censorship earlier that year.
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