It looks as though the United States is about to launch a war against Iraq. Needless to say, should this occur, it will be controversial. President Bush will argue, when it is over, that it was an act of preemptive self-defense. Critics will charge that it was an act of blatant imperialism. History will judge, as the old saying goes.

What goes without saying, as regards this old saying, is that this judgment will be influenced by poets, who will mix a few facts with a lot of emotion, heavy doses of their personal prejudices, and some well chosen words. And years later, the "facts" that will be known by most people won't be facts at all, but impressions, left by poets.

This is an exaggeration, of course. Especially in this day and age when television has taken much of the poetry out of history, and out of everything else for that matter. But it is no exaggeration to say that some of the most influential political arguments ever made were made by poets, via their poetry.

If you don't believe me, pick up a copy of The Faber Book of Political Verse, published in 1986 by Faber and Faber. There, you will find some 400 pages of some of the finest and most effective political commentary ever written, by some of the best poets that ever lived, including such greats as Auden, Blake, Bunyan, Burns, Davidson, Dante, Eliot, Frost, Heaney, Heine, Joyce, Kipling, Lowell, Marvel, Raleigh, Rimbaud, Shakespeare, Shelley, Southey, Swift, Tennyson, Whitman, Wordsworth and Yeats. You will also find two poems by Philip Larkin, including "Homage to a Government," which is political poetry at its best.

Larkin is controversial poet. He is often referred to as an anti-modernist, which, as far as I'm concerned, is a modern phrase for conservative, or someone who reveres truth, tradition, prudence, honor, rationality, reality, and who says what he thinks. He was born in England, graduated from Oxford, and spent most of his life as a librarian. Besides being a highly successful poet, he wrote two novels and was a well-known jazz critic. "Homage to a Government" was published in 1974, but was written in 1969. So, here it is. A political poem by an excellent political poet.