CODA TO THE CITY

Ford's intense concern with war and civilization finds itself expressed in his poems as well as in novels like Parade's End. As early as On Heaven and Poems Written on Active Service, he writes about cities as well as soldiers: 'The Old Houses of Flanders' is a particularly poignant example of the destruction of religious, civic, and family life in the bombing of a city. He returns to this motif when he imagines the destruction of Paris in his last great poem, 'Coda'. In it, Paris, the home of lovers and artists, is also home to the civilizing process, for in art and love Ford finds not only hope for cities but for civilization itself.