Spender, Stephen. "I think continually of those who were truly great".

Summary

- the speaker pays a posthumous tribute to great men

- great men: supposedly ancient historians, artists, or poets; ambitious, zealous, and passionate

- captured the aspects of history and so made it live forever ("What is precious is never to forget")

- conclusion: the great men were "born of the sun", "travelled […] towards the sun", and marked the air with the greatness

Analysis

- free verse, unrhymed

- the great men are fittingly connected with images of sun and light

- the great men and their achievements are associated with lively natural images, as opposed to the lifeless and deadening city images; and finally identified with the loftiest manifestations of nature (sun, clouds, wind, sky, etc.)

- a celebration of the great men specifically, the spiritual aspect of human beings generally

- a celebration of the nature as preferred to the city