Nerves

 

Martin Lewis

                                                 

Nerves

You have noticed the curious increased exasperation

Of human nerves these late years? Not only in Europe,

Where reasons exist, but universal; a rope or a net

Is being hauled in, a tension screwed higher;

Few minds now are quite sane; nearly every person 

Seems to be listening for a crash, listening...

And wishing for it, with a kind of enraged

Sensibility.

                   Or is it that we really feel

A gathering in the air of something that hates

Humanity, and in that storm-light see

Ourselves with too much pity and the others too clearly?

Well, this is February, nineteen-three-nine.

We count the months now, we shall count the days.

It seems time that we find something outside our

Own nerves to lean on.

Robinson Jeffers

 

I read this with amazement. The date this poem was written!! 

It could be describing today.