THE YEAR OF THE YOUNG REBELS by Stephen Spender. 186 pages. Random House. $4.95.
The guns spell money's ultimate
reason In letters of lead on the Spring
hillside.
But the boy lying dead under the
olive trees
Was too young and too silly To have been notable to their
important eye.
He was a better target for a kiss.
(the Spanish Civil War)
In poetry, as in politics, the predominant quality of the man who wrote these lines has not so much been talent or intellect as extraordinary compassion. A near Marxist as well as a poet during the years of the Spanish Civil War, Stephen Spender has worn reasonably well...
