Many people have sought poetry in response to the death, terror, courage, and disruption following the recent attack and massacre. Here are four poems: Edwin Arlington Robinson's "The House on the Hill," which meditates on absolute loss and the inadequacy of words; Marianne Moore's "What Are Years?" on the subject of courage; Carlos Drummond de Andrade's "Souvenir of the Ancient World," in which it is normal life that becomes the remote, ancient time; and Czeslaw Milosz's defiant invocation of the good, "Incantation."

The House on the Hill
by Edwin Arlington Robinson

They are all gone away,
The house is shut and still,
There is nothing more to say.

Through broken walls and gray
The winds blow bleak and shrill;
They are all gone away. 

Nor is there one today
To speak them good or ill:
There is nothing more to say. 

Why is it then we stray
Around that shrunken sill?
They are all gone away. 

And our poor fancy-play
For them is wasted skill:
There is nothing more to say. 

There is ruin and decay
In the House on the Hill:
They are all gone away,

There is nothing more to say.