The George Orwell Poem Nobody Knows

I scoured this from page 314 of a marvelous collection of essays by George Orwell:

"[...]I am the worm who never turned,

The eunuch without a harm;

Between the priest and the commissar

I walk like Eugene Aram;

 

And the commissar is telling my fortune

While the radio plays,

But the priest has promised an Austin Seven

For Duggie always pays.

 

I dreamed I dwelt in marble halls,

And woke to find it true;

I wasn't born for an age like this;

Was Smith? Was Jones? Were you?"

 

I really like it.  Though I don't get most of the political allusions, it reminds me of  mixture of Yeat's Second Coming and W. H. Auden's To the Unknown Soldier. The "Were you" question at the end is simply wonderful.

 

Cited: George Orwell, A collection of essays (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1953).; 314

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